In 2019, I wrote my first yearly wrap-up of the best chess books I have read, with the hope that it will become an annual tradition. I was, fortunately, able to write the 2nd iteration in the series this year, as well, and am planning to continue doing so in the future.

However, in 2020 I also started working at Chessable – a company that sells interactive digital online courses. I immediately realized making a similar „Best of“ list would be helpful for Chessable in terms of spreading the word about Chessable’s products, but also from the perspective of SEO and backlink building. But I also believed it might be helpful for users to have a lot of information in one place and to get an insight about certain courses from someone who has actually already studied them.

Thus, since I am not only a Chessable employee, but also a very enthusiastic user of the platform, ¹ I have decided to start another tradition of writing annual wrap-up posts related to Chessable courses.

Now, before we get to an actual list, there is a disclaimer I would like to point out.

Even though the title of this post is „Best Chessable Courses 2020“, it is highly subjective as it refers to the Chessable courses that appealed to me. It does not apply that the 10 courses below are BETTER than other Chessable courses – merely that there are subjective or less subjective reasons (the topic, choice of variations, style of analysis, author’s way of presenting things) why I spent more time studying them than some others.

Of course, I won’t deny the quality of the content varies on Chessable and that „quality“ wasn’t a factor when assembling this list at all. But the list of high-quality courses available on the platform is far greater than 10 and it will only increase in the future, so I had to put a stop somewhere and judge them using more subjective criteria. ²

Also, this post does not necessarily refer to the courses published in 2020. I have included some courses published way back in the day. The aim of this post is to single out 10 of my favorite courses that are available on the platform at the end of 2020.

With that being said, let me present you with a list of the best Chessable courses in 2020.

Hope you will enjoy it and find it useful.

BEST CHESSABLE COURSES 2020

Lifetime Repertoires: Caro-Kann by GM Erwin L’Ami

What is the course about?

Chessable’s Lifetime Repertoires are opening courses that tend to provide the user with an overall, long-lasting repertoire based on a certain move (1. e4 or 1.d4 for White) or against a certain move (1. e4 or 1. d4 as Black). Lifetime Repertoires: Caro-Kann is, thus, an overall repertoire against 1. e4 revolving around the move 1…c6.

The course covers every possible reply at White’s disposal after 1.e4 c6. And when I say every, I really mean every. Apart from all the main lines such as the Advance variation and Classical variation, L’Ami also covers things like Fantasy variation, Exchange variation, Panov Botvinnik and even goes as far to cover all the sidelines on move 2 such as 2.d3!?, 2. b3!?, 2. f4!? and many others.

Why have I included it on this list?

Even though I have been primarily playing the Modern Defence against 1.e4, for a long time I have been pretty aware I do need a more reliable weapon. I have been kinda aware that Sicilian might be a good choice, but have been lazy to pick it up.

As an „in-between“ solution, I have ventured some Caro-Kann without knowing too much theory in the past and have had relatively decent results. ³ I decided I might use some theoretical knowledge, so when Erwin’s course came out, I started studying it slowly and have also used it to prepare for one or two league games of mine this year (which ultimately ended in a draw).

There are several reasons why this course is simply outstanding. First of all, it is very deeply and thoroughly analyzed. Erwin is the former second of Veselin Topalov and the current second of GM Anish Giri and it definitely tells throughout the course.

However, it is not only about the analysis itself – the course is also deeply annotated and full of subvariations that explain finer points of the position to great detail. Erwin is not only a strong analyst but also a „man of chess culture“ and he also provides detailed historical background and a nice overview of the developments in the Caro-Kann throughout recent years.

Last but not least, Erwin is a very enthusiastic and engaged user of Chessable who really had a deep understanding of Chessable as a platform and it really tells throughout the course. Wherever possible, he went an extra mile to make the learning experience enjoyable – he even included multiple weapons to battle White’s most common moves (3…c5 and 3…Bf5 against the Advance variation and 4…Bf5 and 4…Nf6) against the Classical variation.

He is also very active in the course forums and very fast to reply and clarify any questions a user might potentially have.

So long story short, it is very clear that this course is a labor of love and that Erwin spent almost 3 months working on it and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to any chess player considering playing the Caro Kann as Black.

French Toast: How Harikrishna fries 1.. e6 by GM Pentala Harikrishna

What is the course about?

This course was the first course on Chessable created by elite GM.

As the title suggests, French Toast: How Harikrishna fries 1…e6 is a „Anti French Defence course“. GM Pentala Harikrishna provides the student with a repertoire against the French Defence revolving around the main move 3. Nc3 (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3).

The „meat and potatoes“ of the course are two main lines of the French: Winawer with 3…Bb4 and Steinitz with 3…Nf6. Harikrishna doesn’t go for the mainlines and chooses relatively more rare variations (4. exd5 against the Winawer and 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Nce2!? against the Steinitz) and tries to demonstrate that they are more practical than main theoretical lines, yet that they also contain a lot of venom for the Black player.

He also covers all the possible replies by Black on move 3, including the offbeat systems such as 3…Nc6, 3…h6, 3…a6, and many others.

Why have I included it on this list?

Just like many other club players, I have struggled against the French Defence for ages, so when I saw GM Harikrishna publishing an Anti-French repertoire, I didn’t hesitate twice to buy it.

And even though many books in the past have provided white with weapons against 1.e4 e6, (such as Parimarjan Negi’s famous Volume 1 of his 1.e4 series) none of them appealed to me as much as this one. I really liked Harikrishna’s choice of lines as I have found them more practical indeed + I have also realized many Black players don’t encounter them as often as other attempts.

That is especially true of all the sidelines on move 3, where Hari provides easy and clear-cut solutions and emphasized understanding over memorization. The main lines of the course are far more demanding, theoretical, and difficult to learn, but in my opinion, they are worth it.

My results against 3…Nf6, in particular, have improved tremendously after picking up Hari’s proposed plan with 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Nce2 as I found the overall concept of reinforcing the center with c3, placing the bishop on d3 and knight on f4 very intuitive (even though it is not that simple, of course).

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the lines against 3…Bb4, as they haven’t appealed to me to the same extent. But to be fair, I haven’t devoted a similar amount of attention to them and tried employing them in my own games to have any concrete evidence for my hypothesis.

In any case, this is yet another Chessable course where you have an opportunity to experience super-GM level of analysis first hand, yet despite that the course is not overly long.

So if you are searching for a weapon against the French Defence, I can definitely recommend it.

The Complete Chess Swindler by New In Chess and GM David Smerdon

What is the course about?

This course is a Chessable implementation of the famous New in Chess Book, accompanied by a video presentation by GM David Smerdon personally. You can find more details about the book in my post about best chess books 2020 where I wrote about it in greater detail, but in a nutshell – the book covers the topic of swindling ⁴ and tries to create a framework that can help you become better at swindling in your own games.

Why have I included it on this list?

For the same reason I have included it on my best chess book list – it is a fun, entertaining and engaging read and I found our adaptation very good. It is true that some exercises are very demanding (as it is not your typical chess tactics course), but I think trying to find the „swindling“ move works really well in Chessable’s Movetrainer format.

I also found Smerdon’s videos quite brilliant – his presentation is very energetic, lively and entertaining.

Lifetime Repertoires: Najdorf Sicilian by GM Anish Giri

What is the course about?

This repertoire from the Lifetime Repertoires series, made by the current world nr. 11 ⁵ is devoted to the most complicated and famous variation of the Sicilian of them all – the Najdorf Sicilian.

In this course, Giri covers every possible reply against 1. e4 c5 White can throw at us – including the ever so popular Bongcloud with 2. Ke2.

Of course, the main chapters of the course are devoted to the famous position arising after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6!?. Giri’s choice is to go for the pure Najdorf setup with …e5, and not for the Scheveningen setup with …e6 as often as possible (with the notable exception being the move 6. Bg5!?).

Why have I included it on this list?

As mentioned above, I have been toying with the idea of starting to learn the Sicilian for ages now, but have been daunted by it forever.

Once I saw a super-GM is creating a course on it on a platform that makes it very convenient for me to study opening theory, I decided I can’t fool myself into postponing it any further. And even though the course just came out recently and I have studied only one chapter, I can already say that decision was definitely the correct one.

There are several aspects why I think this is a great course:

• Najdorf is an incredibly vast territory that is very difficult to cover and it seems to me that Anish has managed to make it as practical and condensed at possible. For example, against 6. Bg5, he recommends going for the Nbd7-Qc7-b5-Be7 development scheme as often as possible. The course also has „only“ ~900 trainable variations, which is not as enormous as you would expect.
• I really liked how the course provides a detailed overview of every variation where Giri talks in great detail about trends, various options for both White and Black and explains why he decided to go for a particular setup. It really helped me get acquainted with the basics of the Najdorf and to get some context before starting to learn the lines themselves.
• The course is once again very well annotated and explained and the analysis is once again super-impressive and to the level you would expect from someone that strong.

The only drawback I have noticed so far is the number of variations that end in a forced-draw/repetition/perpetual. But the majority of them are long, forced variations where White plays very computerish sacrificial moves and I am not sure how likely they are to appear in practice – especially on the club level.

In any case, I am definitely planning to learn this course and start playing more Najdorf in the future and I hope this review might entice someone else to start doing the same.

100 Endgames You Must Know by New In Chess/Jesus de La Villa,  presented by IM John Bartholomew

What is the course about?

This course is a Chessable adaptation of another famous New in Chess book, 100 Endgames You Must Know, written by International Master Jesus de La Villa.

It is a „shortened Endgame Theory“ book that provides the reader with 100 theoretical endgames the author considers every player should know. The Chessable version comes with more than 20 hours of video instruction by everyone’s favorite International Master John Bartholomew.

Why have I included it on this list?

Everybody who has ever played against me knows my endgame technique has been my Achilles heel. I have tried working on this aspect of the game in my past and have even read 100 Endgames You Must Know in paper form, long before it was available on Chessable (or before I was aware it was available, there).

However, in contrast to game collections where I enjoy setting the board anew and playing through the games, I found this task in the context of 100 Endgames You Must Know (and other endgame books) quite time-consuming. I also found out I have trouble remembering key positions and reviewing the content from the book that needs reviewing.

Thus, I decided to give it a try on Chessable and thought it is great I just need to click a button to have a position ready and that I am able to review the material periodically to improve the learning process.

In general, I honestly think Chessable’s MoveTrainer works really well for Endgame books and that the possibility to „drill“ the positions in a short period of time is very helpful for memorizing key theoretical endgame positions.

Break The Rules: Play the Trompowsky by FM Kamil Plichta

What is the course about?

Some of the readers of the blog might recall the name of Polish FM Kamil Plichta and how in his interview back in February 2019 he expressed his ultimate dream is to make a living out of chess.

Ever since, Kamil has managed to fulfill his dream and become a Chessable celebrity and „superauthor“ and currently has 13 courses published under his name (with more to come).

Break The Rules: Play the Trompowsky was Kamil’s first course for the platform, in which provides White with an opening repertoire against 1.d4 Nf6, based on move 2. Bg5!?. The repertoire covers all possible Black moves on move 2 and provides the user with some fascinating sacrificial lines after 2… Ne4 3. h4!? (the Raptor variation) and 2…c5 3.d5 Qb6 4. Nc3 Qxb2 5. Bd2 (the Vaganian Gambit).

Why have I included it on this list?

There are numerous and highly subjective reasons why this course is featured on this list, and I will try to present them one by one:

• This was, I believe, the very first Chessable course I ever bought and if you believe in the Butterfly effect, you could make an argument it changed my entire life. Were it not for me buying it, I would have maybe never decided to make my own course and never ended up working for Chessable.
• It has to be said I purchased this repertoire at the moment where I was experiencing a real crisis with my own chess and was not at all enthusiastic about the game. Sacrificial and entertaining variations provided in this course really helped me reinvigorate my love for the game as I got exposed to something new and exciting.
• Trompowsky is a really good practical opening that many Black players really don’t like facing.
• I am also very happy about the success my friend Kamil has experienced on Chessable and am somehow glad it all started with this repertoire.

There are some drawbacks – there are some lines that have presented me personally with some problems. I am not very fond of facing 2…e6 and I am also not very keen on dealing with 2…d5 3. Bxf6 exf6. Kamil also initially had some small analytical oversights (such as 2…d5 3. Bxf6 gxf6 4. c4 e5!? that basically kills that line), but considering it was his very first Chessable repertoire, those things are perfectly understandable. ⁶

But it has to be pointed out that Kamil is one of the most agile and hard-working authors to deal with the drawbacks in his courses. He is very quick to reply to the questions, he is constantly monitoring and updating his repertoires and his Trompowsky course has gone through at least one major overhaul since its first launch.

So for everyone who seeks a practical and less theoretical weapon after 1. d4 Nf6 that is not the dreaded London System, I can highly recommend the Tromp ‘a la Kamil’.

Chess Principles Reloaded: Center by IM Andras Toth

What is the course about?

One of the things we first learn when we start learning chess is the basic chess principles like develop your pieces, occupy the center, bring your king to safety. However, through his work as a chess coach, IM Andras Toth made an observation that many club level players disregard the principles once they continue their chess journey and start climbing the rating ladder. That is why he decided to create a three-part Chessable series aimed at reminding us of their importance starting with Chess Principles Reloaded.

CPR: Center is the first course in the series devoted to the topic of central control. The course consists of a number of annotated games where one side utilizes the central control to achieve a swift, and often very attractive, victory. The games are presented by the man of the hour, IM Andras Toth himself.

Why have I included it on this list?

I have a confession to make. Even though my guilty pleasure is watching „non-instructive“ chess videos of people playing chess, I was never the person who enjoys watching a lot of „instructive“ chess content and have always preferred to learn things from books/courses/on my own.

Andras’ videos are a rare exception. I find his presentation delightful and utterly hilarious. The way he explains ideas clearly and concisely, his constant bashing of the London system and his emphasis on the importance of „centaaaah“ have greatly appealed to me. I have enjoyed watching the entire video series from minute one until the very end. I am not sure if there is a secret ingredient in the Australian air that makes people like Andras and Smerdon so energetic and entertaining, but I can definitely recommend watching their content.

Of course, that is not to say that course is all mindless entertainment. The choice of games is very interesting, the selection of puzzles also very well done and the course did lamp that ‘A-H-A’ bulb inside my head when it came to thinking about Chess Principles. It is also one of the rare courses on Chessable that has an almost perfect user rating (4.9/5.0 based on 106 user ratings) and I believe it is fantastic for people below 1800 (or even 2000) rating.

Last but not least, I have also developed a friendly (Twitter) relationship with Andras and I am very happy to see his course(s) doing really well and am happy to recommend them!

The Complete Open Sicilian Vol 1 for White by NM mn79

What is the course about?

Even though we have a huge catalog of courses on Chessable, there are still some gaps remaining and one of the bigger ones is the content on the Open Sicilian for White.

The Complete Open Sicilian for White by National Master mn79 ⁷ is a course aimed at filling this gap. In this two-part series, NM mn79 aims to provide White with an overall anti-Sicilian repertoire based on the Open Sicilian.

Volume 1 covers all the 2nd move sidelines, the e6 Sicilian, Accelerated Dragon, Nc6 sidelines, Kalashnikov and Sveshnikov.

Why have I included it on this list?

One of the beauties of Chessable is that one can easily find „hidden gems“ – courses that don’t get that much publicity, but which provide really good content. The Complete Open Sicilian for White is one such course. It is a very practical and not overly complicated repertoire against all Sicilian mainlines.

I really liked it because the author managed to strike a nice balance between length and usefulness. The repertoire is not overall, grandiose and „cutting-edge“ as some other repertoires such as Lifetime Repertoires, but it is nevertheless very decently researched and offers very decent and playable lines, aimed at getting some advantage. I primarily used it to study the Maroczy lines against the Accelerated Dragon and I really liked the author’s work and recommendations in that chapter.

It may not withstand the scrutiny of Master level and above, but I think it is a perfect starting point for club players who want to get some ideas on how to handle the Sicilian and then potentially build upon that knowledge as they progress.

Therefore, if you are looking for something not overly lengthy and practical, I can definitely recommend this one (and Vol 2 of the series). If not, well, let me just say we have a lot of surprises in store for 2021 :).

Crush the Pirc, Modern & Philidor by Chessforlife

What is the course about?

Chessforlife is an experienced and rather well known Chessable Community (untitled) author who has already made several very ambitious repertoires aimed at refuting lesser-known/slightly dubious defences.

In this course, he provides the student with a sharp repertoire against the Pirc and my beloved Modern revolving around the Austrian Attack (early f4) and around Philidor Mainline (1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. Nf3 Nbd7 7. Bc4).

Why have I included it on this list?

Even though Chessforlife is not a titled player, his repertoires are very ambitious and sharp and very well received within the Chessable community. For each and every one of them, he spends a lot of time analyzing various possibilities with top engines and offering very concrete, „I play for a big advantage“ variations.

Out of his all courses, this one appealed to me the most because:

• I already had some previous knowledge about the Austrian Attack against Pirc and Modern and I supplemented it with the lines offered in this course.
• Since I am quite familiar with the Modern from the black side, I can definitely confirm his lines are very problematic and he even paid attention to some of the variations offered in my course.
• I believe Philidor mainline is the best variation against this opening and I used this opportunity to get acquainted with it.
• In general, I like that approach of going for the throat and playing for the big advantage right out of the opening.

Of course, when relying heavily on chess engines, there is always a danger that the human factor is completely disregarded and lines are too abstract to learn. To be fair, there have been some complaints in that regard related to Chessforlife repertoires and I also think some longer lines could be more deeply annotated and explained. I can understand why some lower-rated players, in particular, could have a hard time grasping the material provided in these courses.

But in general, I think this approach is suitable perfectly for repertoires aimed against offbeat/slightly dubious defenses and that chess is a concrete game where it is worth to go for this maximalist approach.

So if anyone is looking for very sharp and critical attempts to refute these setups, I can highly recommend Chessforlife’s courses – especially this one.

The Modern Defence Against Everything by CM Vjekoslav Nemec

What is the course about?

This course created by your trully is a repertoire for Black revolving around the move 1…g6. Despite its title, the main focus of this repertoire are White setups arising after 1. e4 and it also includes the Averbakh variation with 1.d4.

There are some plans to turn it into an overall repertoire and include 1. c4, 1. b4, 1. b3, but it is still not 100% clear when and how that will happen, so stay tuned.

Why have I included it on this list?

Even though I am aware it is very shameless and douchey to include your own repertoire into the „Best of“ list, considering it is a highly subjective one, I couldn’t do without doing it because this repertoire had a huge impact on my life – its release led to me quitting my day-time job and working for Chessable.

Aside from that non-chess factor, I honestly think it is a decent repertoire. I put many hours of analysis and writing into it and I was (and still am) proud of the final result.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it is anywhere near perfect. Since it was my very first repertoire and since I had no clue what I was doing, there are so many things I would have done differently today. I already talked about it in my promo post for this blog, but some of the things I would have changed are:

• Relied less on engines and shortened some of the long and forcing variations
• Been more careful and thorough with the analysis. I would scratch a number of variations and change them for something else today.
• Written better and clearer explanations throughout the repertoire. Even though I did a lot of writing, I got the feeling I did it „on the wrong places“ – in many places I have still seen general chess cliches such as „with compensation“ or „Black is better“ or „Black has equalized“ without ever explaining why. In the past year, I have become much more aware of the importance of emphasizing understanding even more and my course still leaves a lot to be desired in that regard.

I do plan to address these issues in the near future and fix the repertoire even more.

But all that aside, I still think it contains a lot of useful information for a potential Modern Defence player AND it literally changed my life for the better, so I have absolutely no problem mentioning it again :).

Besides, if you really thought I am  NOT the type of person who would include his own work into any BEST OF list, I am not sure what you are doing on this blog in the first place.

Honorable Mention: The Fierce Nimzo-Indian by WFM Maaike Keetman

What is the course about?

My colleague and fellow Chessable’s Publishing Manager WFM Maaike Keetman provides the student with a dynamic and combative repertoire for the Black pieces based on the Nimzo-Indian 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4.

In contrast to many other Nimzo-repertoires, she refrains from going for „equalizing“ quickly with an early d5, but rather prefers to play to win by playing b6-Bb7 and/or c5 as often as possible.

Why have I included it on this list?

Even though I haven’t studied her repertoire yet and have no interest in the Nimzo-Indian for Black, I did take a look inside the course ⁸ and was highly impressed with its content. It is enough to say that the repertoire currently has 180k words, which is the record word-count on the site when it comes to Chessable’s original content. ⁹

Besides, having worked with her closely, I know Maaike’s work ethic and her dedication and have no doubt she put her heart and soul ¹⁰ into this course. Since she is one of the „elders“ among Chessable stuff, she has a good understanding of the student needs and course design and it is not at all surprising her work has been very well received.

Besides, if this repertoire wasn’t on this list, I would have to listen to „Yeah, sure, you include your own repertoire but not mine“ remarks until the end of my life.

It may be one small step for this blog, but a giant leap for the quality of the relationship between Chessable’s Publishing Managers.

The post Best Chessable Courses 2020 appeared first on Chessentials.

WFM Maaike Keetman is a Dutch chess player who was a part of the Dutch Female National Team at the Baku Chess Olympiad in 2016. Outside of the Dutch chess circles, she is probably better known as Chessable’s employee as during her two-year reign in this company she supervised, edited and quality controlled hundreds of Chessable courses. In fact, due to her contributions and work-ethic, in late 2020 she became a Publishing Manager at that very company, at the age of 21.

On top of it all, Maaike also managed to apply all the knowledge about course creation she gained over the years and channel it into the creation of her very own course. In October 2020, the world saw her debut as a Chessable author as her highly successful (and verbose)¹  Chessable course on the Nimzo Indian defense, titled The Fierce Nimzo-Indian, was released.

I first met Maaike soon after I joined Chessable. We started collaborating and working on the same projects and I was immediately impressed – not only with her thoroughness, precision and work ethic, but also with her patience, friendliness and sense of humour.

We immediately found the common language and developed a very good relationship based on mutual respect and appreciation.

In all sincerity, Maaike is one of the nicest and friendliest people I have encountered and I am happy she is not only my colleague, but also a friend – and am therefore really looking forward to this interview!

Maaike Keetman as a Chess Player

Q: Hi Maiike and welcome to Chessentials, it is really nice and exciting to have you here! First of all, since I am not well-versed in Dutch names, would you mind sharing how did you get your name? Does it have any deeper meaning?

A: Maiike doesn’t have a deeper meaning however, Maaike is the Dutch/Frisian (an area in the Netherlands where they also have their own dialect) version of Maria.

Q: In the interview for Chessable Blog you have already talked about how you got involved in chess ² and you mentioned you started playing chess after your brother started playing it. But I haven’t realized who actually taught you the rules? Was it your brother, your parents or were you some sort of self-learning prodigy?

A: My parents did (mainly my father). We read many books together when I was young, as my English wasn’t good enough yet to understand it all, so he helped me read them.

Q: Was the fear of being unable to beat your parents also the reason you decided against learning checkers? Or were you born as a true chess elitist and always considered checkers as an inferior game?

A: I always was more fascinated by chess – somehow, the fact that there is only one (okay, perhaps two, when you „promote“ your piece) piece made it seem so boring compared to chess. I’ll admit that in my own country, checkers is reasonably popular (less than chess, but we have had many world champions) so it would definitely have been a logical choice for me – but chess was just much more inspiring for me.

Q: Okay, okay, you very soon joined a chess club? What happened next? When did you start playing tournaments? Did you have any trainers? When did you first realize you might be gifted for the game?

A: Yes, quite early! Soon I played my first tournament, the Noord-Holland (area in the Netherlands where I’m from) championship under 8 when I was 6. This was the qualifier for the national championship U8. As I was the only girl, I automatically qualified – but I ultimately skipped the tournament to perform in a ballet show… luckily, I soon realized I had zero talent for ballet, but that the chess was going much better! So the year after, I did play the national championship and made second place total (and girl’s champion).

(A photo of young Maaike with a Harry Potter book. Note: All photos were provided by Maaike from her personal archive.)

Q: In the Chessable interview, you also mentioned you studied the Step method, a special chess teaching method devised by Dutch authors that has been recently gaining some recognition? Would you mind sharing your experience with it? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using it with young players compared to other more conventional methods (books + analysis) or modern methods (Chessbase + engines)?

A: I personally really loved it! In Dutch chess clubs, almost every child learns from that method, I think. It is very methodical and therefore leaves little gaps in the knowledge of patterns – in the category of tactics especially. There is an instruction book for the teacher, and exercise books for the pupils: a basic one, but also 2 other ones with even more exercises. To make it more fun for the kids, usually, one „step“ book is covered in a year and there are exams at the end when you can get a sort of degree and a grade for how well you did.

I enjoyed solving exercises so much, that I would usually go through all of the books multiple times. I even made a game out of it with myself, that I would use a timer and try to solve a whole book as fast as I could! I truly believed this helped my pattern recognition a lot and I think that tactics is the area of chess where I’m strongest currently as well. These days, Chessable is perfect for such ways of training, but back then I of course had never heard of space repetition – I just tremendously enjoyed it!

As for conventional/modern: in the Netherlands, this is considered conventional but at a later age/higher level, I think that learning from books and especially analyzing your own games and learning from your mistakes is very useful to improve.

Q: How successful were you as a player in your youth? How were you faring in your age group on the national level? Did you play a lot of international events (in terms of European Youth events, etc.)?

A: I was usually at the top of my age group, especially when I was young. I already mentioned the second place overall U8, and I had the same result the year later. From the age of 10, the championships are split in my country, with separate categories for boys and girls. In the U13 girl’s championship, I became the national champion. After that, I always played in the open category where I was usually the only girl. My best result there was a fourth-place U15.

I did have some international results as well: when I was 9, I played my first European Youth Championship and had an average performance. In total I played in 5 different European Youth Championships (2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2016) and usually played in the (sub)-top, often fighting for top 10 and getting shared 2nd in 2015 (see next question!). I also played in the World Youth Championship in 2015.

Q: You have mentioned one of your greatest successes is the shared 2nd place in the U16 category at the European Youth Championship 2015 in Poreč, though. Can you describe a bit how did your tournament go? What was your daily routine? What were you feeling like when you finally climbed the podium?

A: This is quite a crazy story actually! I had won the first 2 rounds, and then in the third round, all was going alright. However, at some point during the game, my chair broke!! The arm rests broke off, which hurt me a bit but was mainly very distracting (also I felt very embarrassed for breaking something, as this happens to me a lot…). I played very badly but somehow managed to draw an endgame an exchange down. The day after I also drew, but in round  5 I lost to the number 1 on rating, Stavroula Tsolakidou (now an IM). So it wasn’t going smoothly at all.

Luckily, I managed to score 2,5 out of 3 from the next games and was on 5,5 out of 8. In the last round, I faced the number 2 on rating who already had 6,5 points. It is worth noting that there was additional pressure here, since my roommate, Anna-Maja Kazarian, was in fact leading our group! ³

If I would win, she would win the title. After a tense game, I managed to win, Anna-Maja became champion and I got shared second – naturally, a very happy moment for me and the whole Dutch delegation :)! ⁴ The following (embarrassing) picture shows how happy I was…

(A photo from the final ceremony of the tournament. Anna-Maja Kazarian is to the far left)

As for the routine, I was coached by the strongest Dutch female player, GM Zhaoqin Peng who helped me prepare every day and also trained with me and the rest of our small group (usually at those international championships, coaches have 4 of the Dutch players and will have training/prep sessions with them) which was very valuable for me. I also really love the social aspects of those international tournaments, so I definitely wasn’t just focused on the chess, and really enjoyed being a tourist and swimming a lot, as well as playing games with the other Dutchies.

Q: As a side note – quick impression of Croatia and Croats? Can we boast our country and people contributed to your good result?

A: Well, the great hotel definitely helped! The food was truly amazing and put me in a very good mood. I remember it was around 20 mins walking to the playing hall from our hotel, which was perfect: the Croatian weather is lovely! The scenery from the bus also seemed amazing, so definitely a good impression of the country.

However, my trophy had the word „chess“ misspelled, so perhaps the Croatian people didn’t make a perfect impression on me…

Q: A year later, you also became a member of the Dutch National Female Team at Baku Olympiad 2016. How did you qualify and get this opportunity? Who were the other team members?

A: I was quite lucky to get this opportunity. I did not qualify or anything, but my rating was rising and I believe they wanted to have a mix of experienced and young and upcoming players, so I was selected as the reserve board! I was really really excited, of course. The other members were the very strong players GM Zhaoqin Peng, WGM Anne Haast and IM Tea Lanchava, who have all won the national championship at some point, as well as the already mentioned Anna-Maja Kazarian.

Q: What was it like to play in the Olympiad and represent your country? Were you impressed or inspired? How are you satisfied with your result?

A: Highly inspired, yes! It was a very unique atmosphere. Thanks to our very strong men’s team with Anish Giri, we were in the hotel with all of the top countries and it was highly interesting to see all of those players in a casual atmosphere. Usually, you just see them behind the board, all suited up, but now people were wearing sport’s clothes, just casually chatting with their team members (or one particular country stood out to me for the fact that their members would all sit at separate tables and not talk at all).

It was really cool to be part of that! About my result we can be very short: it was disappointing. But if I ever get the chance to be on the team again, I’m highly motivated to do better!

Q: It is also well-known that Olympiad is rich in off-the-board events (who doesn’t know of the (in)famous Bermuda party). Do you have any memorable (or not so memorable, if you catch my drift) stories to tell? What was your impression of the top players and Grandmasters when you got to see them in a less formal environment?

A: I have plenty, but as may expect, many are not suitable to be put here on the internet I did have one funny conversation at the prize ceremony, where I was sitting close to Baadur Jobava, and he asked me „I can’t even remember who won last year, do you?“ and in fact, no one around us seems to know! I guess that’s how it goes when there are so many tournaments…

I also remember that the Chinese women would celebrate a win by eating KFC, a ritual I very much support!

(Maaike as a part of the Dutch Olympiad team 2016. From left to right: WGM Anne Haast, GM Peng Zhaoqin, IM Tea Lanchava, Maaike and WIM Anna-Maja Kazarian)

Q: A look at your rating graph reveals it was precisely in 2016 that you achieved your peak rating of 2254 (December 2016).

Even though there is a lot of variation subsequently (presumably caused by K40 rating?) and even though you did reach a very similar rating a year later, it is very chessplayery to try to conclude anything on the basis of rating, so let me try – would you say you played your best chess in that period? That you were at the peak of your form?

A: I think that in general, I played much worse than I do these days. Especially my opening play has improved a lot since, as that was quite a weak point of me back then.

Q: Alas, starting from late 2017, a certain drop in rating, followed by a period of stagnation in upper 2100 spheres, which lasts to this day, is apparent. Would you mind sharing your perspective on this?

Is there a certain correlation between the work you put in the game and your playing strength and that god damn number? Or is it a pure coincidence that doesn’t reflect the true state of affairs?

A: I don’t think this is a coincidence at all. As I just mentioned, I think I play better these days, but there is a very logical explanation: between October 2016 and September 2017, I took a gap year where I worked 3 days a week at New in Chess (more on that later) and would devote a lot of time to chess on other days.

Being in this mindset obviously helps a lot when you play a tournament, and I would often perform well. I also played on a very regular basis. In September 2017 I went back to University to pursue a degree in Econometrics, which is considered a very challenging subject. That meant that I could devote a lot less time on chess, and whenever I did have a tournament, my results would often be mixed as I sometimes felt too tired to play.

That said, when I did feel energized, I manage to achieve some good results – for example, I did not score any norms in 2016 or 2017 (although I was often very close), but in 2018 I made my first WIM norm in Barcelona and in 2019 I managed to win the WIM Arisan Chess Ladies tournament, scoring my second norm. In both cases, I scored a half-point extra than needed!

So when I’m on form, I do believe I can play better than I did in the past. Sadly, when I lack focus, I will have some bad losses and drop a lot of rating – for example in the Dutch league, which is just on a Saturday and you don’t know your opponent beforehand. That lack of preparation and not the full tournament mindset often costs me rating points, as I have suffered quite some losses there in recent years.

Q: What is the current state of your game? You did mention in the Chessable interview you don’t work as much on chess, but that you still train daily. How many hours do you devote to chess training? What do you do?

A: Because of Covid, I haven’t played since March and I find it hard to say how strong I would currently play, as I definitely lack some rhythm now! That said, I love chess and try to train as much as I can besides my job and studies and usually study something every day. This can be many different things: openings, strategy, tactics, you name it.

Q: I know that you have a very ambitious long-term goal of becoming an International Master (and a short-term goal of becoming a Woman International Master). Is becoming an IM more like a future idea, or an actual dream/goal you are definitely going to try to commit to once the Covid crisis is over and things get back to normal?

I am asking because I also have a goal of becoming a FM, but I am not sure if I am ready to really commit to it (spend time and money, experience the agony of defeats and potential setbacks, etc). Since recently more and more people are declaring ambitious chess ⁵ goals, I am curious to hear your thoughts on this topic?

Do you think there are any inherent dangers of setting ambitious long-term goals or do you consider it helpful to maintain focus and direction? ⁶

A: I have always dreamed of becoming an IM, ever since I was little (never GM, actually). I definitely want to commit to achieving this, but indeed, where to find the time? My motivation dropped a bit with the whole Covid situation as there are no OTB tournaments, but when that is over and I have graduated, I expect to have a lot more energy again and am really excited to see how far I can come!

I am ambitious in many ways, and the thought of setbacks doesn’t really scare me. However, you of course do have a point that there can be some dangers to having (too) ambitious plans – if things don’t work out in the short term, it can be very disappointing.

There is also the small issue that when you have achieved your goal, there suddenly is this „emptiness“ and you don’t know what to do anymore. I think this is quite often seen, and that people who get FM/IM/GM drop some points soon after, as the motivation has dropped.

That said, I do think it can be very motivating to have a certain goal and work towards it in small steps, as long as it’s realistic. This is of course very cliché, but I think it’s important to not only think about the goal but also the journey, and just enjoy that as much as possible. Then it should be fine!

Maaike Keetman as a Chessable Manager

Q: Okay, I think I have poked enough about your chess career. Let’s switch the topic and talk about your Chessable career. You mentioned in the Chessable interview you had been working for New In Chess before you switched to Chessable. The million-dollar question is – how did you start working for New in Chess?

A: As is often the case, I was lucky and had some connections! My trainer at the time, Wim Andriessen, was actually the founder of New in Chess! So I managed to get some small chores there from a very early age, I believe I was 13 or 14.

Usually, during the summers, I would do some work, or just throughout the year as my high school was about 5 minutes biking from their office. I would often go once a week after school to do some work. In October 2016, I started working there on a more regular basis, working 3 days a week there for 9 months.

When I went back to university, it became less regular again, but I kept working some occasional hours.

(Maaike in good company – with GM Daniil Dubov at Tata Steel 2020)

Q: When you say you „switched“ to fully work for Chessable, what exactly does it mean? Could you elaborate a bit on how did this transition exactly happen?

A: In the summer of 2018, I was working at NIC again for the full summer. One day, we had a visitor – David Kramaley, the CEO of Chessable! He showed me the site and there was an agreement that I would start importing New in Chess books to the Chessable platform.

This meant that essentially, I was doing work for both companies. I was very fascinated by Chessable and saw great potential there (keep in mind, the site was nowhere as big then as it is now!) and in February 2019, I decided to only work for Chessable and I’m still very happy about that, as I love it here!

Q: If I am not mistaken, some of your family members have worked for NIC back then (and they still do)? How did they react when it transpired you will be switching companies?

A: Yes, in fact, my mother, sister and brother all work there until this very day! Although admittedly, my brother only started working there more after I had left. We just talk about work as little as possible, and that is fine by me.

Q: Okay, after you joined Chessable, what exactly was your job description? Would you mind explaining to readers what Chessable exactly is and what were you doing? What does it mean to „import a book“?

A: I have always been part of the content team. In fact, I was one of the first members of that department – these days, we have a lot of staff members who focus on creating and improving our content, but back then it was much smaller.

Any Chessable course doesn’t appear out of anywhere, but a staff member (or author) has created it based on the available (pgn) files. This is often a lengthy process, editing and formatting the course so it is suitable for the platform and it’s famous MoveTrainer technology that helps you study and train all exercises/variations.

One important thing is that before publication, a course always gets „beta tested“. This means that actual users will try out the course and give feedback on it, which the staff member would then incorporate.

This communicating with people and making a product better together was something that I always really enjoyed, as it ensures that work is never boring or repetitive!

Q: How have your responsibilities and role in the company changed in the prior two years before you got your current position? Could you summarize in one paragraph your journey from being an importer to becoming a Publishing Manager?

A: I was an importer for quite a long time: if you count my time as an importer for NIC courses as well, I did it for almost 2 years. This was because the company was less big, so there was less organizational structure necessary, and because I was only a freelancer. In the last week of April, I pitched the idea of making my own Chessable course (more on that later!) and coincidentally (or not…?), 3 days later, I was asked if I wanted to join Chessable full time.

I said yes, and because I had a lot of experience (keep in mind that most people only joined the team in 2020, including this blog’s owner) I was made co-head of the Content Quality Assurance. This was a lot of fun, and I had a lot more communication with authors which I really enjoyed. To improve the standards of the content, the Quality staff members will give authors feedback on their files, and also give the importers feedback on the final course on Chessable.

This is getting longer than one paragraph but at the end of August, Chessable had grown a lot more, and I was asked if I wanted to be Publishing Manager to help manage the content team! I did not need to think about it for long, and of course, said yes, and have been enjoying it for 3 months now.

(Maaike with the Dutch Chessable gang, back in the day when hanging out without a mask was still a thing…)

Q: What exactly does a Publishing Manager do? How different is the job in your current role in contrast to what you did in the past?

A: There is a variety of things, but one of the key things is that we manage the publishing schedule. This means that we are in charge of communicating with authors and planning their courses, making sure everything is published on time.

It also means that we manage the importers and Quality staff members, as they are creating the content. Besides that, there is a variety of other things, such as communicating with new potential authors, creating contracts for them, but also planning sales and many other things.

A key difference is that I have to talk a lot with a lot of different people and thus have a lot of meetings, whereas in the past there was a lot of manual, actual importing work. But as you can probably tell from this (very!) lengthy interview, I don’t mind talking at all!

Q: How does it sound to be a „Manager at 21“? Were you surprised when you were provided with the opportunity? Do you ever look back and feel proud about everything you have achieved in your professional life (and not only professional life) in such a short span?

A: Haha, I usually don’t say that out loud, it sounds so weird! I have to admit that I was surprised, yes. I was very happy as the co-head of Quality Assurance and as I was only doing that for a few months, I didn’t expect to get promoted so soon. But I’m very happy to have gotten the opportunity!

I usually prefer to look forward and am excited about the future!

Q: Last but not least – allow me to put you on the spot right now, but you know I can’t resist . Gun to your head, what would you say is the best thing and what would you say is the worst thing when it comes to working for Chessable?

A: Well, I truly love chess, so being able to work in that world is amazing! And I love everything about the company. I guess that forces me to say that the best thing is the amazing coworkers

As I like it all, the worst thing is probably something that can be both good and bad, and is probably relatable for a lot of people in this Covid-era: the working from home and not seeing your colleagues in person.

I personally enjoy the flexibility that working from home gives you, but it can be a bit tricky too: there is a less clear distinction between working hours and free time, so it can be very tempting to keep working until very late (just answering an email here, a message there, and suddenly, it is very late).

(Well, I guess there are easier ways to achieve work-life balance… :D)

Maaike Keetman as a Chessable Author

Q: Apart from being a Chessable employee, you recently also joined the ranks of Chessable authors, as your first Chessable opening course, titled „The Fierce Nimzo-Indian“ was published.

Why did you choose to do a course precisely on Nimzo-Indian and not, say, the French Defence, which is also an opening you have been playing in your youth and in which you have great expertise?

A: Well, I pitched several ideas I had. I really wanted to do something on the French Defense, but then we had just signed Anish Giri up to make a repertoire on that opening (which is really excellent by the way)! So, that didn’t seem to be a very good choice anymore. However, I always struggled when facing 1.d4 and thought others may have the same issue, and I had been very happy with my Nimzo-Indian analysis there, so I pitched that idea and it was approved!

I’ll add that it was always my dream to write a chess book (keep in mind that I worked for a publisher for a very long time, so a book was the ultimate goal). However, a Chessable course seemed just as cool, so I was really excited AND nervous to pitch that! I postponed it for a very long time, but ultimately am really happy that I took the leap.

(Artwork for Maaike’s course. Let the Tiger roar!)

Q: In the Chessable interview you mentioned it took you 5 months to create that repertoire, which already speaks volumes about the difficulty of creating a Chessable course (or any chess book, for that matter). Could you talk about the specifics in greater detail? What was the process like? Which steps does it consist of? What caused you the most difficulties?

A: Yes! I just pitched it as „b6 Nimzo“ but after lots of analyzing, ultimately used none of my old analysis and made it all new from scratch. I think it could have been done a lot faster, but I had 2 very specific things in mind for this repertoire which made it a lot more challenging.

First of all, I wanted it to be very dynamic. It is much easier to just follow your engine and try to find positions where Black can draw. But I was very keen on creating unbalanced positions, not aiming for a draw but where Black can really fight and try to win!

This of course does not mean that Black will be better from the opening, but just that there are more chances for both sides to get a real game. This meant I often had to redo analysis if the positions were too boring or if White had too many options to force a draw, so it took quite long to find lines that suited my purpose. Ultimately I succeeded quite well with it I think, or at least users have told me that they get very fun games with the lines, so that makes me really happy!

Second of all, I find it really important to truly understand why something is played. As I have seen so many different courses, there is one thing that comes up almost every time: users who want more explanations and want to understand what to do after the opening moves have ended. So, that’s what I gave them!

I believe it ultimately boiled down to over 180K words which is very, very big. As this number did not immediately mean something to me, I googled that the first Harry Potter book has a little over 75K words. So my course is almost 2,5 times the first Harry Potter book! That truly shocked me, and you can imagine it takes a while to write that much.

Q: You also went on to record the video. Even though you haven’t had a lot of experience in front of the camera, you seemed very natural. Were you nervous at all before you started filming? How did you manage to maintain your composure and be so relaxed?

A: Soooo nervous!! In school, I was always terrified when I had to do a presentation, so I was very worried it would be really awkward and everyone would hate it, but I thought it would be good for me to try and see how it goes. And in fact, after the first day where all technical details were taken care of and I got a bit used to the process, it went quite smoothly.

It probably helped a lot that I was at the professional studio, as I only had to focus on the recording itself, and not on how to set up the equipment and such. Whenever I started a chapter, I would just get really excited and happy to talk about the lines that I spend so much time on! So all the nerves would just fade away as soon as I started talking.

I learned a lot too so hopefully next course, it will go even better!

Q: Do you have any ideas/plans for subsequent repertoires? Since Fierce Nimzo-Indian only covers 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 move order, are there any plans to complement it with another repertoire against other White 1.d4 „shenanigans“? There are rumors your knowledge of Jobaava London might need some refreshment.

A: Definitely! In fact, I have already started working on it, so stay tuned

Q: If you got to give advice to all potential Chessable authors (and/or some existing ones), what would it be?

A: For potential authors: to not be afraid of the whole process. It may seem long and perhaps scary, but I enjoyed working on the material so much and it was so amazing when it got published! So I can definitely recommend making a course.

As for the actual creation: as a publishing manager, I often give advice to authors on how to improve the content, and I think one key thing is to keep the target audience in mind. The average user will not be a top player, so it is important to include lines they will encounter often and explain things that may be obvious to you but can be very valuable for the users. So the key advice is: don’t make it too difficult!

Maaike Keetman As Female (Chess) Ambassador

Q: There is one more chess-related topic I would like to talk about and then expand on it – your role with the Chess Queens organization. Would you mind explaining how was this organization founded and what is your role there?

A: This is a Dutch foundation, that was founded almost 6 years ago by the top players of the country; the 5 founders all played in the national team at the time. I will admit that I was not involved from the beginning (as I was only 15), but 1,5 years after that, somewhere in 2016, I was invited to be a part of it as a „chess princess“, so basically a slightly younger version of it

The aim of the foundation is twofold: to improve the level at the top, and promoting chess for women on a broader level. These days, the second goal is the most important and we are mainly targeting young girls.

In January 2019, the foundation expanded and now we have 7 members (all called chess queens). Currently, I’m the treasurer.

Q:  The main focus of the organization is inspiring young girls to play chess. How exactly do you go about achieving this goal?

A: One thing we do is organize tournaments for the girls (see picture). Covid had made things more difficult, but we are organizing online tournaments for girls now and we have for example a grand prix series, currently on its third season already. Those include a tournament on Sunday morning for girls under 13, and one in the afternoon that is open to all women but mainly focused for girls under 18.

Several members of the foundation are also very active in giving training to young girls.

(Maaike: This is a picture from our OTB girls tournament in 2019, which was a big success!)

Q: Is there anything that could be done on a much broader scale (chess clubs, chess federations, FIDE, regular politicans and governments) that could entice more girls to play chess? If yes, do you have any ideas about what?

A: I think that with the Netflix series, the Queen’s Gambit, there is a lot of attention for women in chess right now. If FIDE or other federations/organizations can capture that and turn it into something real, I think we can definitely get more women to play chess. However, doing so is definitely very challenging.

Q: How welcome did you feel in chess playing halls throughout your career. How often did you have negative experiences connected to the hidden or not-so-hidden forms of sexism? How many times did you experience situations which made you extremely uncomfortable? Are „creeps“ exceptions to the rule, or rather the rule itself, in your experience?

A: I did always feel welcome; no one ever told me I was not allowed to participate somewhere. However, sexism is of course very present. At a young age, people would often not take me very seriously. Now at an older age, that is different, but still, when men lose to a female player, they tend to make more excuses for why they lost, instead of just admitting that someone played well.

There are definitely „creeps“ and it’s almost customary to encounter one or more at every tournament, but that means that the rest of the people are nice so I wouldn’t call it a rule. But it is definitely something that happens regularly and it can definitely discourage women from playing.

Q: What can an average, normal chess player do to make chess playing tournament halls more welcoming toward females and to make one „small step“ toward achieving the desired changes? ⁷

A: I guess that last comment just says it all I think just treating women, in the same way, would help; so just take the game equally seriously and no derogatory comments or excuses. But I don’t think such a culture can easily change.

Q: Considering everything you achieved in the chess world and in a professional sense, you are a great role model for many young girls (even though – knowing you – you probably haven’t thought of yourself this way). What would your message be to any girl thinking about entering the chess world or fulfilling her dreams in a professional (or any other) sense?

A: Don’t let anyone stop you! If you’re passionate about something and you have the possibility, pursue it! If you have passion, you can achieve anything

Maaike Keetman off-the-board

Q: Okay Maiike, I think we have talked quite a lot about chess and plugged Chessable so far :D. Let’s conclude this interview with something not strictly chess-related.

First, the most important question of them all: Ketchup or Mayo?

A:. Ketchup, of course! Mayo is one of the most disgusting things on the planet! ⁸

Apart from doing everything mentioned above, you are also currently in the process of getting your degree. What are you studying and how is it going?

A: I mentioned Econometrics before, but that proved too challenging for me (given that I liked to also work and play chess), so I switched to Economics and Business Economics, where I’m focusing on the latter one and majoring in Finance. I really love numbers, so that’s a good fit for me! I hope to graduate and receive my bachelor’s degree in the Summer of 2021, although I’ll admit that studying in the Covid era is a bit different.

Q: Listening to you, one can’t help wonder how you manage to be so active on so many fronts? What is your secret when it comes to handling all these obligations?

A: I truly enjoy the things I do! If you enjoy something, it seems to cost way less energy.

Q: What do you like to do in your free time? What are some of your hobbies outside of chess?

A: Eating ice cream, cooking/baking, reading, Netflixing, taking walks, playing board games, (online) shopping, cuddling cats and just talking to friends! Oh, and I have been trying to learn Russian in my free time, although I put that on hold for now.

Q: Do you do also do any physical training? Any sport?

A: I no longer practice any sports (I briefly practiced judo at some point) but I love walking, running and just general fitness exercises. I think it is very important to be physically fit as chess games are much more exhausting than people think! Being able to concentrate for hours definitely requires a good fitness level.

Q: Are you interested in sport in general? Do you watch/follow any sports? ⁹

A: Not at all, surprisingly. I think many chess players are, but I never watch any sports. Perhaps that is why I have so much time for other things

Q: I do recall you mentioning Netflix quite often in the past, though. Do you have any good TV shows you watched recently? Or any old favorites to recommend?

A: So many! I mainly watch detectives or thrillers, although comedy is of course always good if you are tired and just want something easy. There are so many good ones, I always loved watching Dexter, I recently watched the first season of Bron (Danish detective, The Bridge in English) which was really good and these days I’m watching Lucifer again.

Q: What about books? Made any progress on that Mythos Trilogy? Any other good books you read recently you would like to recommend?

A: I have started on Troy, have to catch up with you of course! I have always loved to read, in the past I mostly did fiction but now almost exclusively non-fiction (although hard to say which category Mythos is…). I love reading about things such as history, mathematics, economics, science and psychology. Some of my favorite books are :

• Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner,
• How Not to be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg,
• and I also really enjoyed the book The Unexpected Truth About Animals by Lucy Cooke

Q: If you could invite three persons to dinner, whom would you invite and why?

A: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. And maybe just Vjeko and our other publishing manager Juan Almaguer, as we always have a lot of fun together! ¹⁰

Q: Do you have a life motto? If yes, which is it?

A: Not really, although in Dutch I like to say, „rustig aan, komt goed“ which is something like, relax take it easy. Given how much there is to do often, it is usually helpful to take a deep breath and just be calm!

Q: Finally – allow me to conclude the interview with the most important question of them all – on a scale from 1 to Vjekoslav Nemec, how chessplayery would you say you are? What is the most chessplayery trait you have? ¹¹

A: This is probably your hardest question! I probably have to be honest and say that I am closer to Vjekoslav level than 1, but I still like to think I rate lower than you…

I have a tendency to make things more complex than necessary, which is very chessplayery. But there are countless typical traits, I’m afraid.

Q: Okay Maaike! I would like to thank you for taking the time and demonstrating the true extent of your „verbosity“ by completing this marathon interview! I wish you all the best on all fronts and I wish you to fulfill your goals in the future – I am holding my fingers crossed that those chess titles start falling like ripe apples soon. 

Looking forward to releasing this interview and collaborating a lot more in the future!

Now, if you could stop fooling around and actually do some meaningful work, it would be appreciated.

Those emails ain’t going to send themselves!

A:

The post Chess Author, Player, Manager: Maaike Keetman Interview appeared first on Chessentials.

Introduction

In March 2019 I listened to the 120th episode of the Perpetual Chess Podcast featuring John Hartmann, a book reviewer for Chess Life Magazine and editor of Chess Life Online.

In the episode, Hartmann talked about his career as a chess book reviewer and offered advice to all aspiring chess writers. Among other things, he said it is worth to „try and knock on other people’s doors“.

I decided to heed his advice and sent a bunch of emails. One of them landed at the email adress of the Chessable staff. The first thing we discussed was writing some blog posts, which ultimately resulted in the afore-mentioned Chessable review, as well as Keep It Simple: 1 d4 review.

However, more importantly – in the initial email I pitched them several ideas for potential Chessable courses. A repertoire for my favourite opening for the Black pieces – the Modern Defence – was among them. They liked it the most, I also had nothing against doing it ¹ and as they say – the rest is history. After some iterations, working on the repertoire in the summer of 2019 and 6 months later, on 10.02.2020, my first Chessable course titled The Modern Defence Against Everything was published!

In this post, we will take a closer look at my first Chessable repertoire.

First, I will talk briefly about the Modern Defence – the philosophy behind the opening and how I started playing it. Then, I will talk about the course itself – the organization, the structure, covered variations, etc. Finally, now that it is all finished, I would like to look back and offer my current perspective of the repertoire – with which aspects I am very content, but also, what is something I think I could have done better.

Hope you will enjoy it!

About the Modern Defence

The Modern Defence – Introduction

The Modern Defence is opening characterized by Black playing the move 1…g6 irrespective of what White does. However, it is most often played as a reply to the move of the king’s pawn 1 e4 (although The Modern Defence Against Everything also covers the lines arising after 1 d4 g6):

The Modern Defence belongs to the group of Hypermodern openings. Black is content with developing on his own side of the board and violates the classical rules about fighting for the center. He allows White to grab space and advance his pawns unhindered. Black delays the clash of the forces and claims that White’s strong center might become vulnerable and provide him with serious counter-attacking chances.

The Modern Defence is also known as Robatsch – named after Austrian grandmaster and botanist Karl Robatsch who popularized it in the 1950s and 60s.

The philosophy behind the Modern Defence. The resulting positions, nature of play?

As mentioned above, the Modern Defence is a counter-attacking opening. Black allows White to occupy the center and then aims to undermine it and destroy it with energetic play.

As a consequence,  the Modern is all about sharp, tactical, fighting chess. It is messy. It’s full of wild combinations and sacrifices. It is ideal for a player who excels when there is a chaos on the board, for a fervent follower of Mikhail Tal’s maxim that you need to „You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one“.

The following game between Croatian GM Zoran Jovanović and Hungarian GM Richard Rapport is a perfect example:

Of course, playing in such a manner does entail a certain risk. Allowing your opponent a lot of space leaves the possibility of getting suffocated open. In double-edged positions, the value of each move is very high – one step in the wrong direction might lead to an opening disaster.

Fortunately, this is also true for White. When the play is so concrete and sharp, the moves he has to find are often very demanding. In order to punish Black’s provocative strategy, White has to play energetically and vigorously.

As you will see, most critical lines are extremely sharp and often include various sacrifices. Unless he is very well prepared, 8/10 times, an average club player will avoid the most critical lines in favour of normal moves.

The problem is that routine play, characteristic of lower-rated players, often allows Black to seize the initiative.

Even if he doesn’t take over, he has chances of outplaying the opponent from an equal position, since he should be more familiar with the resulting positions and structures.

How did I start playing the Modern Defence?

The Modern Defence has been my main opening with the Black pieces for the last couple of years. Since it is an odd opening choice to build your repertoire around, perhaps I should explain how I picked it up.

I started playing tournament chess relatively late in my life ( when I was 19 ). Even though I did play a lot on the Internet beforehand and read a number of books, I had really poor opening knowledge and didn’t really know how to study this phase of the game or build a repertoire. Once I started playing, I didn’t want to play one of the main lines. My ( twisted ) reasoning was as follows:

It is more difficult to pick up a line with a lot of theory as an adult and learn it from scratch compared to playing it from your early years and gradually expanding it.

Other players at my level are more likely to have a better knowledge of the main lines. For the first year or so, I played the Alekhine defense exclusively. But since tactical play is my strong suit, I wasn’t satisfied with passive and dry positions I often got out of the opening.

I started searching for something sharper, while still being reluctant to pick up something like the Sicilian. That is when I stumbled upon the book by a Swedish Grandmaster Tiger Hillarp Persson titled: Tiger’s Modern, devoted to – yes, you guessed it – the Modern Defence. Persson has been the leading Modern specialist for several years and later he wrote a revised edition called the Modern Tiger ( which, surely enough, I also got). Tiger’s treatment of the opening was based on the little pawn move a6, leading to the quick queenside expansion with b5-Bb7-Nd7-c5.

I was immediately attracted to the opening. Material sacrifices, imbalances and wild tactics – all an integral part of this opening – appealed to me very much. I went through the book, picked up some variations, and started playing it – with decent results.

5 years later and approximately 200 ratings higher, it is still my main defense.

Is the Modern Defence only suitable for club level players?

The Modern Defence is particularly effective at the club level. But it is not played at the club level exclusively.

Apart from Tiger Hillarp Persson, several grandmasters, like Zurab Azmaiparashvili, Stuart Conquest, Colin McNab, and Chatabalshev Boris have employed it regularly. The hero of the book Smart Chip from St. Petersburg and one of the strongest blitz players in the history of the game, Genrikh Chepukaitis, has also employed it regularly.

It even appears at the top level: Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Peter Svidler, Rauf Mamedov, Vugar Gashimov, Richard Rapport and Ivan Šarić have all won at least one classical game with the Modern defence at least once in their careers, while Yasser Seirawan and Jonathan Speelman ( who also wrote a book on the opening ) were its proponents back in the 80s.

The drawbacks of the Modern Defence?

Of course, the sentence in the previous paragraph exposes an important truth about The Modern Defence – it is perfectly suitable to serve as a surprise weapon.

But if I were completely honest, I wouldn’t recommend going down the same path I went and decided to play it exclusively. There are two problems in particular:

• I have noticed that, once I approached 2200 ELO, it became an obvious target for the opponent’s preparation. Even Peter Svidler, in one of his Q&A videos for chess24. com recommended having something else as the main weapon and picking up the Modern Defence as a side/surprise weapon.
• Even though my aim was to avoid a lot of opening theory, it turned out the Modern has quite extensive theory itself, due to a variety of possible White set-ups. Sure, it is an idea-based opening where the knowledge of ideas and general concepts helps tremendously and makes it somewhat universal. But even so, there are certain lines where you simply need to remember what you are doing, or you might not even make it out of the opening.

With that being said, I still highly recommend you to try it out.

I guarantee you will get exciting and fighting positions. Even if you sometimes pay the price, the Modern Defence is bound to make your games much more fun.

As they say – you live by the sword, you die by the sword!

Course Overview

Course in numbers

After getting acquainted with the Modern Defence, it is time to talk about the actual course.

The Modern Defence Against Everything consists of 636 trainable variations, 41 alternative variations and 59 informational variations, ² which are accompanied by more than 150 000 words of annotations and more than 20 hours of (optional) video instruction. The average length of the variation is 13.87 moves.

The price

The price is 29.99$ for the course without video and 189.98$ for the course with video. From 10th February to 20th February, the repertoire is on an introductory sale, with a 33% discount on the course without the video (19.99$) and 47% (99.98$) on the course with video. ³

Organization and structure:

The variations are divided into 16 thematic chapters (whose picturesque names were „borrowed“ from Tiger Hillarp Persson’s books), as follows:

Chapter 1 – Introduction – initial remarks and comments

Chapter 2 – Quickstarter Guide – a typical feature of all Chessable repertoires, presenting a set of variations most often encountered in practice, which are sufficient for the student to try the opening. The Modern Defence Against Everything’s Quickstarter Guide consists of 35 variations

Chapter 3 -The Austrian Attack: Main Line after 7 e5– a dangerous setup where White plays f4 and follows it up with e5

Chapter 4 – The Austrian Attack: Other Lines – setups where White plays f4 but delays the advance of the e-pawn

Chapter 5 – Flexible Dragon Unleashed: Nc3-Be3-Qd2 setups – setups featuring an early development of the dark-squared bishop (fighting against c5 break) where White goes for the quick queenside castling and tries to overrun Black on the kingside

Chapter 6 – Flexible Dragon Restrained: Nc3-Be3-Nf3 setups – setups featuring an early development of the dark-squared bishop where White plays in a more restrained, positional manner

Chapter 7 – Into Midar: Nc3-Bg5 setups – setups featuring an early development of the dark-squared bishop to a more aggressive post Bg5

Chapter 8 – The Fianchetto Variation: g3-Bg2 setups – the quiet, but no less venomous setups involving an early fianchetto of the light-squared bishop

Chapter 9 – The Classical Variation: Nc3-Nf3 setups – a setup where White adheres to the classical principle of developing the knights before the bishops. Also leads to more positional and strategic play.

Chapter 10 – The Hippopotamus – the well-known setup with bishops on g7 and b7 and knights on e7 and d7. I recommend using it only against the „classical“ move order (Nf3-Nc3) with a4 included.

Chapter 11 – Mad Dog: Nf3-Bc4 setups – setups where White tries to probe our f7 point and often goes for the Qe2-e5 ideas

Chapter 12 – The Lazy Variation: Nf3-Nd3-c3 setups – the most solid approach against the Modern defence, where White tries to keep his solid center intact and prevent Black from developing active counterplay.

Chapter 13 – Early Deviations by White – all possible alternatives available to White on moves 2 and 3, with particular emphasis on Closed Sicilian and Grand Prix setups.

Chapter 14 – The Averbakh Variation: setups with c4 – a chapter devoted to „queen’s pawn“ setups where c4 has been included, or where White omits the e4 advance in favour of d4 altogether.

Chapter 15 – Sample Games On Master Level (Grandmaster Games) – a collection of annotated games where strong players have played the Modern defence.

Chapter 16 – Sample Games On Patzer Level (Author’s Games) – a collection of annotated games where the author of these lines has played the Modern defence.

Challenges I encountered while working on The Modern Defence Against Everything repertoire

The creation of this Chessable repertoire has probably been the most difficult project of my entire life.

There are several reasons for this. First of all, I had no prior experience in writing a coherent chess repertoire. It was a big challenge to lay it out, organize the material and structure it, let alone start producing it.

Secondly, up to that point, I was only familiar with Chessable from the user perspective. I didn’t know how exactly the process of publishing a course works. I had to learn everything from scratch – from importing .pgns to writing annotations, doing graphical arrows and including links to other chapters and variations. There was a lot of going back and forth that cost me a lot of time and nerves and it definitely prolonged the release of this repertoire.

Last, but not least, the Modern Defence is not the easiest opening for an author to tackle.

As is apparent from the number of chapters and variations, The Modern Defence Against Everything is a big repertoire.

This is a direct consequence of the Modern Defence’s nature – since Black doesn’t contest White’s center, the opening play is not forced. Basically any developing setup by White is viable and transpositions between various setups are very common. It was quite challenging to take everything into account – even Tiger Hillarp Persson didn’t mention all the possibilities in his books (for example, the line 1 e4 g6 2 h4!?). I had to be vigilant not to exclude anything (although I still don’t rule out the possibility I did).

As a consequence, it took me much longer to do this repertoire than I expected (6 months of on-and-off work). Numerous hours were spent analyzing, importing, commenting, fixing mistakes, fixing the fixes of mistakes, replying to beta tester comments, improving the initial version, etc.

The pros of the course / What I am content with?

Despite the challenges, I am glad it managed to see the light of the day. I can say that I am quite happy and proud of the final result. Even though it is not very modest to praise my own horse, I am very content with several aspects of The Modern Defence Against Everything. Some of the pros of the course are, as follows:

• Thorough and deep annotations. I did my best to explain the ideas, plans and concepts – especially in the early opening stage of the game.
• A lot of links in the annotations, pointing out move orders and transpositions and making it easier for the student to compare similar, yet slightly different variations
• Number of alternative lines and alternatives offered to the students when facing critical lines
• A lot of independent analysis
• A couple of surprising and sacrificial novelties
• A solid number of annotated games, with relatively thorough annotations.
• A separate chapter with my own games, in accordance to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin In The Game principle.
• Honesty. I firmly believe in being authentic in life. I didn’t try to present the Modern Defence as the next best thing, but as a primarily practical weapon. Already in the introduction to the repertoire, I mentioned it is probably not advisable to follow my steps and turn it into your sole defense against 1 e4 and I tried to remain as objective as possible throughout the repertoire.

The cons of the course / What is something I am not content with?

However, I can’t pretend everything is perfect. Even though only three days have passed since the course was published ⁴, there are some aspects of the course I am not content with. In hindsight, I wish I did some things differently. Some of the cons of the course are, as follows:

• Uneven length of the lines. It is always a question when the author should stop analyzing a certain variation. I haven’t managed to cope with that task in the best possible way. Some of the lines are too long, some of them are perhaps a tad too short.
• Occasional overreliance on the engine. In some complicated lines, I fell victim to clicking through the engine analysis and switching off my brain. As I was going through the course myself, I noticed I didn’t consider some human options. Some of it was corrected in beta, but definitely not all of it.
• Overoptimism in certain lines. I did my best to remain objective and honest, but I feel there are some lines I may have evaluated too optimistically. Not too many, fortunately.
• Lack of smoothness when it comes to the official videos. I was never fully content with my presentation/brodcasting skills and 100% natural in front of the camera. I did get better over the years, and videos I filmed later for this repertoire are much better than the first few, but I still feel there is much left to be desired, especially compared to some more renowned authors such as Chessexplained or John Bartholomew.

Short & Sweet – The Modern Defence

Chessable also has a series of free repertoires – the so-called Short & Sweet series – which serve as introductory courses for a certain opening.

The Modern Defence also got its version, where I try to present the Modern Defence through 22 main, tactical, sacrificial and fun variations.

Think of it as a slightly more cheeky, shorter and attractive version of the Quickstarter Guide chapter.

Conclusion

There you have it! I hope this overview has provided you with a better idea about the Modern Defence and what you can expect from The Modern Defence Against Everything repertoire on Chessable.

Even though there are things that might have been improved ⁵, I think the repertoire is of a very decent quality. A huge number of hours have been spent to create this repertoire and I hope the student will be able to sense this effort as he goes through the variations!

To conclude, if this post enticed your curiosity or if you simply want to support the author of these lines, feel free to check The Modern Defence Against Everything out, or to tell your chess friends about it.

I would be incredibly grateful for it :).

An introductory video for The Modern Defence Against Everything repertoire

The post My First Chessable Course: The Modern Defence Against Everything – Overview appeared first on Chessentials.

If you don’t know what Chessable is, or you don’t know how exactly it works, I recommend reading this introductory post to Chessable first

INTRODUCTION

A couple of weeks ago, I listened to the 120th episode of the Perpetual Chess Podcast hosted by Ben Johnson, featuring John Hartmann, who is a book reviewer for Chess Life Magazine and editor of Chess Life Online.

In the episode, Hartmann talked about his career as a chess book reviewer and offered advice to all aspiring chess writers. Among other things, he said it is worth to „try and knock on other people’s doors“.

I decided to heed his advice and sent a bunch of emails. One of them landed me into a conversation with members of Chessable, who asked me if I would be interested to write a review of their recently published course, Keep It Simple: 1. d4, by International Master Christof Sielecki.

As I have explained in the Chessable introductory post, considering I am a fervent Chessable devotee who believes their product is useful, there weren’t any internal conflicts that would prevent me from accepting it. ¹ They gave me access to the course, I went through the variations and wrote down my impressions.

The final result – an honest, in-depth review of the Keep It Simple: 1. d4 – is now in front of you.

Hope you will find it useful!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

International Master Christof Sielecki is better known to the wider chess audience as IM Chessexplained, nicknamed after his popular Youtube Channel he started back in 2011. According to his website, in 2014 he gave up his day-time job and started to make a living out of chess.

Most of his time is devoted to his work as a chess-teacher, but he has been also very active as a chess content producer. Apart for the videos for his Youtube channel, he has made video series on chess24 (on Ruy Lopez and English Opening), written a book on Nimzo and Bogo-Indian defences and live-streamed banter blitz session for both chess24 and International Chess Club.

However, during the last couple of years, he has been rather busy with publishing repertoire books for Chessable where he published six courses so far:

• Short & Sweet: The Petroff
• Chessexplained Benko Repertoire: A complete answer to 1. d4
• Chessexplained English: A complete repertoire based on 1. c4
• Fight 1.e4 like Caruana
• Keep It Simple: 1.e4 (which became the first-ever Chessable course that got published as a print book)
• Keep It Simple: 1.d4

ABOUT THE COURSE

Following the success of Keep It Simple: 1. e4, Keep It Simple: 1.d4 was the logical next step. The aim of both KIS courses ² is to provide a complete opening repertoire for the White player on the basis of different 1st moves.

In the KIS: 1 d4 course, the author proposes us to play an universal system based on the fianchetto of the bishop, castling and going c4 (1 d4 – 2 Nf3 – 3 g3 – 4 Bg2 – 5 0-0 – 6 Bg2). Although the aim of the repertoire is to go for this plan almost regardless of what Black does, the author does cover 14 different setups Black can go for, in which we sometimes deviate from our ‘scheme’ (say by playing c4 before castling), due to the concrete features of the position. These setups are divided into 14 chapters (not including Introduction), as follows:

• …d5: Sidelines/ Tarrasch
• …d5 and …c5: Grünfeld Reversed
• …d5 and …e6: The Catalan
• …d5 and …Bf5: …Bf5 Setups
• …d5 and … Bg4: Bg4 Setups
• …g6 and …d5: Grünfeld-style
• …g6 and …d6: King’s Indian Setups
• … e6 and …c5 Benoni Declined with …e6
• …g6 and …c5 Benoni Declined with …g6
• The early …c5: Benoni Systems
• The early …b5: The Anti-c4 approach
• The early …b6: Queen’s Indian Setups
• The early …f5: Dutch Setups
• Black plays something else

There is a marked difference in approach between Keep It Simple 1 e4 and 1 d4 courses. In the former, it was not possible to recommend an universal setup, because the play is more concrete and different replies by Black lead to markedly different positions. For example, after 1…e5 or 1…c5, you know you will never get a Pirc-like or French-like position ³. The simplicity of the repertoire was based on the avoidance of any danger and complications and limiting Black’s counterattacking options by reaching very stable and simple positions, not on universality.

Consequently, move orders and transpositions were of less importance, in contrast to 1 d4 where they are crucial. Since the play is less forced and more flexible, Black can transpose to certain lines later than expected, by delaying some critical moves. For example, in the following variation:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple Review"]  [Black "Line 1"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "A49"]  [PlyCount "9"]   1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O *   

Black can decide whether he wants to play the Grünfeld setup with d5 or King’s Indian setup with d6. That is why Sielecki has devoted particular attention to all possible move orders and transpositions.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER AND THE REVIEWING PROCESS

Now that you have the idea about the structure of the course, I should provide a bit information on my preferences as a chess player and perhaps explain how I approached reviewing it.

I am a 2170 ELO rated chess player, who plays 1 e4 most of the time. I have very little experience with 1 d4 – I played it only a couple of times in tournament games, both times avoiding the mainlines and opting for the London System and/or Trompowsky. I am also primarily a tactical player and have a preference for fighting and risky variations, and am therefore not the target audience of the repertoire with ‘Simple’ in title, that often results in quiet, positional play.

In order to review the course, I first had to study it. Due to its sheer volume, I’ve decided to go over every single variation, but less thoroughly. That is why I set the number of repetitions to 1, the Quiz option to ‘Immediately’ and decided to study only the key moves. ⁴ I didn’t watch the complete video material, but I have referenced it on several occassions to hear the author’s thoughts about specific positions.

With that being said, we can finally get started with the actual review. I have decided to organize it as follows: first I will talk about things I liked about the course. Then I will focus on the things I wasn’t fond of. In the end, I will wrap up the review with my final impression and evaluation of the course.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE COURSE

The main thing I like about this course is its sheer volume. Purely on the basis of the variations and lines of text, it consists of, it is clear that the author has put an enormous amount of work into building this repertoire.

As you go through it, it manifests itself as follows:

• Amount and depth of variations

The course consists of astounding 1031 variations, with the average depth of the line of 13.35 moves. If you disregard all 6-7 move long variations where author covers various transpositions and move orders, an average depth of the main line is probably even greater.

A number of important variations ~20 moves long. On numerous occassions, the author extends the opening variation and transitions deeper into the middle game, directing the student toward potential plans and ideas in subsequent play.

A good example is a variation from the …d5 and …Bf5 chapter:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Sample line 2"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "D11"]  [PlyCount "37"]   1. d4 {This chapter is about black setups involving ...d5 and ...Bf5, usually  combined with the pawn moves ...c6 and ...e6. You will encounter this setup  quite frequently if your opponent's main defence to 1. d4 is the Slav Defence}  d5 2. Nf3 (2. c4 c6 {Slav players are very accustomed to the triangle pawns in  the centre (...d5,...c6 and ...e6) and prefer to develop the bishop outside of  the pawn chain, either to f5 or g4. I decided to examine the Slav style setups  in two separate chapters, as our reply against ... Bf5 is quite different to ..  .Bg4. How do we handle the ... Bf5 lines? When I analyzed the ...Bf5-setup it  quickly emerged that White has two principled ideas in it. One of those  involves playing for the pawn push to e4, prepared by c4,Nc3 and Nf3-d2. A  possible line with this approach is 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 c6 4. Bg2 Bf5 5.  O-O e6 6. c4 h6 7. Nc3 Nbd7 8. Nd2 and e4 next. This whole concept certainly  has some logic, but the resulting positions are not that dangerous for Black  in my opinion. Black can often trade pieces on e4 and simplify the position.  This whole approach is very solid for White, but I found the second principled  plan to be much more interesting. The second plan and the one that I chose for  this book involves White playing an early c4 and Qb3, attacking the undefended  b7-pawn. Now the most common reaction for Black is to play ...Qb6, creating a  vis a vis situation of the queens on b3 and b6. We will play the pawn to c5,  forcing a commitment. Now it seems to be most reliable for Black to trade on  b3, creating a complex queenless middlegame. This position type is generally  considered to be satisfactory for Black, but I think I have found enough ideas  to pose some problems. I need to emphasize that there are many ways for Black  to not play into this queenless middlegame, and these are usually not that  great for Black - there are many, not very obvious, pitfalls. If they know the  best line and play into the queen trade, we are going to know the ins and outs  a lot better and make their life as hard as possible. Now, about concrete  moves and move order: we play our usual setup with the kingside fianchetto and  a later c4, but there is one very important twist that I'd like to mention  right at the start of the chapter. We are delaying O-O in this line, going for  a quicker c4/Nc3/Qb3 sequence. I will discuss the reasoning behind this move  order once we reach the specific positions.}) 2... Nf6 3. g3 c6 {Here Black  may still transpose to other chapters of course, with moves like 4... e6, 4...  Bg4 or even 4... g6. Besides the obvious 4... Bf5 there is one more move that  is relevant to ...Bf5-setups.} 4. Bg2 {I recommend delaying/omitting castling,  and playing a quicker c4. The mainline, that we are about to examine, is 4.  Bg2 Bf5 5. c4. I'd like to point out that you may also play the  'hyper-accelerated' c4 by going 4. c4 immediately. This position usually  arises from the proper Slav move order 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 and  has been played quite frequently in recent grandmaster practice. This even  quicker c4 has some points, most notably lines like 4... Bf5 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nh4  or 6. Qb3 Qb6 7. c5, when 7... Na6 is fully prevented due to 8. e4. So, what's  the catch? Black may take on c4, of course. after 4... dxc4 there is no way to  regain the pawn, it is a true gambit. This is fully playable for White, but  also very complicated and committal. I felt that this does not fit too well  with the spirit of this repertoire. However, this move order might be a  welcome addition to your repertoire at a later stage. It obviously shares many  themes with the lines presented here and therefore is certainly easier to add  than something entirely different in nature.} Bf5 {Here Black may still  transpose to other chapters of course, with moves like 4... e6, 4... Bg4 or  even 4... g6. Besides the obvious 4... Bf5 there is one more move that is  relevant to ...Bf5-setups.} 5. c4 {As mentioned before, I recommend playing  this instead of castling first. Of course playing 5. O-O is not a mistake, but  in my opinion it is less precise than 5. c4 if you intend to follow up with  the Qb3 plan. As discussed in the intro, I think this is most dangerous  approach available. So, why is 5. c4 more precise? There are two main points.  The first one is best explained with a sample move sequence. Let's say you  would play} (5. O-O e6 6. c4 Nbd7 7. Nc3 h6 8. Qb3 Qb6 9. c5 {Now Black does  not need to take, but also has 9... Qa6 available. This is a reasonable way  for Black to play, intending ...b6 soon. I was not able to find an advantage  against this idea. Now, let's check what happens if we omit castling: 5. c4 e6  6. Nc3 Nbd7 7. Qb3 Qb6 8. c5. Now 8... Qa6 is not a good idea because of the  tricky move 9. Bf1!, threatening e4. The bishop retreat is not only strong,  but also very easy to miss by Black. So this way we set a little trap and  avoid an otherwise annoying line. The second point of 5. c4 instead of  castling first is the queenless middlegame after the trade on b3, for example  after}) 5... e6 {The most logical move and by far the main one.} 6. Nc3 {Black  now has three main moves of about equal strength. These are 6... Be7, 6... h6  and 6... nbd7. It might not seem like a big difference at first, but the  details are very important here. Black will usually only have some general  ideas about this line, while studying the subtle points will give you good  chances to pose Black serious problems that he has not expected in the first  place. I need to mention that some points apply to all three moves. We will  play 7. Qb3 and the best reply for Black is 7. ..Qb6 8. c5 Qxb3 9. axb3.  Deviating from this sequence is worse for Black and the way to punish these  deviations is also somewhat similar. I'll point out the differences, of course.  The endgame after 9. axb3 is very interesting to study. The three versions of  the endgame are somewhat transpositional, but one important distinction is the  placement of the b8-knight. The endgame with the knight coming to a6 is in  fact sharper and more concrete, while the placement on d7 leads to a more  quiet game. I'd like to emphasize again that studying the endgame is important,  because it will appear frequently as the moves leading to it are so natural.}  Nbd7 {This is the most popular move here.} 7. Qb3 {White has an interesting  alternative in 7. Nh4 here. As mentioned this idea is worth checking if Black  has omitted .. .h6 and the knight is on c3 already. I was not able to find any  tangible advantage, so I decided to stick to the usual recipe with Qb3. The  idea Nh4 will still be important in some lines, though.} Qb6 {This is the best  reply, but not always played. You also meet the passive (and bad) ...Qc8  frequently.} 8. c5 Qxb3 9. axb3 {We have reached the already mentioned endgame.  There are three versions of the endgame, depending on Black's sixth move. Here  Black has already committed to the knight placement on d7, which means the  endgame will be less sharp and based on concrete lines compared to the other  versions where Black might play a quick ...Na6. Let's have a look how the play  develops with the knight on d7. In this position type it is favourable to  still have the king on e1. First of all, Nc3 is more relevant for the  queenside play (b4-b5) than O-O, we are slightly faster on that side of the  board. Additionally, White has the plan to play a setup with h3 and g4, which  is also more powerful with the king still on e1. These points will become  clearer once you study the lines featuring this structure.} a6 {Black plays  this move almost all of time. Not just here on move 9, but also most of the  time at a later stage. Black wants to make the rook on a8 mobile and is afraid  that White may play b4 and even b5 quickly. By going 9... a6 right now he  makes sure that after 9... a6 10. b4 Rc8 the b5-push is prevented.} 10. b4 Rc8  {Black stops any b5-ideas. As we have seen in the 9... Be7 line, this b5-idea  is not even on our agenda.} 11. h3 {Here you may also play 11. Nh4, but it is  essential to understand the general plan of h3 and g4. This plan is relevant  for all versions of the endgame with. ..Nbd7, and may appear from other move  orders. We are dealing with various setups here, rather than very concrete  move orders.} h6 {Black will play this move at some point, getting the  h7-square for the bishop.} 12. g4 Bh7 13. Bf4 Be7 14. Nd2 {This move finally  reveals what to do on the queenside. White starts a knight tour to a5,  ultimately eyeing the b7-pawn. This position is slightly better for White,  because Black has less space and very few active ideas. Of course he is  solidly placed, but it is not much fun to just sit and wait. White also has  the idea to expand in the centre later. Let's examine some possible  continuations to illustrate.} O-O 15. Nb3 Bd8 {Black needs to react to the Na5  idea.} 16. Bd6 Re8 17. f4 {White stops ...e5 and gains even more space.} Be7  18. Bxe7 Rxe7 19. e3 {I prefer White here, being a huge believer in space. If  Black does not show some clear idea, we will play ?f3 and h4. This whole line  also shows the point of delaying castling and playing c4 on move 5. This  kingside expansion does not work after White has castled.} *   

Even though the opening has ended, the author extends the variation up to move 19 and explains typical ideas and motifs behind White’s moves.

• Amount of text/commentary

With 101.954 words of text, this Chessable course is probably the record holder (at least when it comes to the courses I own). That is almost two times more than KIS: 1 e4 (which consisted of 59.309 words).

I was especially fond of clear and in-depth explanations at the beginning of each chapter, where the author presents a detailed overview of the chapter with the main ideas of the variation. It is really helpful when encountering new opening variations for the first time.

And it also makes the task of keeping track of various transpositions and move orders much easier. Which brings me to the next point.

• The clarity in the explanation of transpositions and move orders

Probably the thing I liked the most about the course.

Throughout every previous Chessable course I have studied, I felt that the coverage of the various transpositions and move orders left something to be desired. Either it was mentioned briefly (in passing), omitted altogether, or been rather confusing.

In KIS: 1 d4, this is not the case. From the introduction to the course, the author devotes a lot of attention to dealing with Black’s flexibility. Each chapter contains several specific variations dedicated exclusively to transpositions to other chapters. It is is easy and simple to keep track of this aspect of the course.

• Amount of (new) ideas one can extract from the course

Another aspect of the course I like is that it is not merely a bunch of lines we need to memorize. The author constantly points out ideas behind certain moves and even introduces several novelties in well-known positions. Even if you don’t remember all the subtleties and exact moves of these variations, some concepts will definitely stick.

• Quality of engine analysis

Last, but not least, the quality of engine analysis is the best testament to the author’s thoroughness. The vast majority of the lines I have checked have withstood my own engine’s evaluation. I haven’t discovered a major hole and you really get the feeling that the author had every single position with engine evaluation on his board at some point (which is surprising for such a big course).

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT THE COURSE

Unfortunately, there are also many things I didn’t like about the course. My main objection is that the title is a bit misleading, because this is NOT a SIMPLE course. I thought that the title „Keep it Universal“ would have been more appropriate. ⁵ Even the author himself admits it at least once throughout the course!

The complexity of the course manifests itself as follows:

• Too many complicated, long, forcing and sharp lines

In contrast to KIS: 1 e4 where the main aim was striving for simplicity, with just a few complicated lines included (Four Knights Defence, I am looking at you) in KIS: 1 d4, long, complicated and forcing lines are encountered much more often.

As an example, take a look at the following variation of the Grünfeld chapter:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Sample line 3 - bez komentara"]  [Result "1-0"]  [ECO "D77"]  [PlyCount "43"]   1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. c4 dxc4 7. Na3 Nc6 8.  Nxc4 Be6 9. b3 Bd5 10. Bb2 a5 11. Ne3 Be4 12. a3 Bh6 13. Nc4 Bd5 14. Ncd2 Bxd2  15. Qxd2 Bxb3 16. Qh6 Ng4 17. Qh4 f5 18. d5 Bxd5 19. e4 Bxe4 20. Ng5 h5 21.  Rad1 Qe8 22. f3 {And White wins} 1-0   

Or at the following variation of the Grünfeld Reversed:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Sample Line Grünfeld Reversed"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "D02"]  [PlyCount "45"]   1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 c5 4. Bg2 cxd4 5. O-O Nc6 6. Nxd4 e5 7. Nxc6 bxc6 8.  c4 Be6 9. Qa4 Qd7 10. Nc3 Rc8 11. cxd5 cxd5 12. Qxd7+ Kxd7 13. Rd1 Bc5 14. Na4  h6 15. Nxc5+ Rxc5 16. f4 e4 17. h3 Rc2 18. g4 Ke7 19. Be3 a5 20. Rac1 Rxe2 21.  Bc5+ Kd8 22. f5 Bd7 23. Bd4 {And the black rook is trapped!} *   

Don’t get me wrong – I am very fond of studying sharp and forcing lines. But I think their number doesn’t quite fit in the „Keep It Simple“ repertoire.

• Too many lines where White gives up material and seeks compensation

Another sharp contrast to KIS: 1 e4, where the main aim was the restriction of Black’s counterattacking chances, is how often the author advises us to „go for it“ and asks us to sacrifice material for long-term compensation.

Chapters like reverse Grünfeld, Catalan or …d5 and …Bf5 are almost based on this concept, while various pawn sacrifices for the sake of the initiative can be found throughout the entire course. Take the following variation from the King’s Indian chapter as an example:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "King's Indian Sample Line #1"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "A49"]  [PlyCount "45"]   1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O d6 6. b3 e5 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Ba3  Qxd1 9. Rxd1 Re8 10. c4 e4 11. Nd4 Ng4 12. Nc3 e3 13. Nd5 exf2+ 14. Kf1 Nxh2+  15. Kxf2 Ng4+ 16. Kg1 Na6 17. Ne7+ Rxe7 18. Bxe7 Ne3 19. Rd3 Nf5 20. Nxf5 Bxf5  21. e4 Bxa1 22. exf5 Rb8 23. b4 {And White has a strong initiative for the  pawn.} *   

Another example from the same chapter was even more astounding. True, the author mentioned 17 bxc4 is possible, but the very suggestion of moves like 17 Qc2 somehow does not fit in the „Keep It Simple“ repertoire.

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "King's Indian Sample Line #2"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "A49"]  [PlyCount "35"]   1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. O-O d6 6. b3 c5 7. Bb2 Nc6 8. d5  Na5 9. c4 a6 10. Nbd2 b5 11. e4 Rb8 12. e5 Ng4 13. Re1 Nxe5 14. Nxe5 Bxe5 15.  Bxe5 dxe5 16. Rxe5 bxc4 17. Qc2 {Of course 17. bxc4 is better for White as  well, but I wanted to show this interesting engine suggestion. It is not a  commonly seen idea.} cxb3 18. axb3 {White has excellent play for the pawn and  will very likely regain the material soon while keeping a strong initiative.  Black has just too many weak spots to cover at the same time.} *   

As mentioned previously – I don’t associate such variations with the word ‘simple’. Also, a number of these ‘with compensation’ variations didn’t appeal to me since I didn’t find them particularly convincing. I am not sure how much they would appeal to players lower rated than myself, since playing dynamically while being down material is one of the most difficult skills in chess to master.

• Too many nonconclusive evaluations (positions where the author advises us to investigate further)

Another thing that bothered me is how often the author left us with nonconclusive evaluations in (what it seemed to me) unclear positions, where the play is just beginning. For example, take a look at the following line of the Grünfeld chapter:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Grünfeld Sample Line"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "A49"]  [PlyCount "31"]   1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. c4 c6 7. b3 dxc4 8. bxc4  c5 9. Bb2 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Qb6 11. Qc1 Nc6 12. Nxc6 bxc6 13. Nd2 Bf5 14. Nb3 Rac8  15. e4 Be6 16. Rb1 {In the game L.Ding-F.Caruana, Wijk aan Zee 2015, White  played 16. e5 instead. 16. Rb1 is the computer improvement, which poses more  problems. You could easily continue the analysis up to move 30, but this is a  bit too deep. I'll show some moves and then cut it. If you have some time to  spent: it's interesting to analyze a bit here and helpful for your overall  assessment of complicated positions.} *   

Maybe that is my personal reference, ⁶ but when I study openings from a book or a course, I don’t like if I have to search for answers too much on my own.

And since this is a huge and time-consuming course as it is, allotting additional hours to analyze complicated positions on my own wasn’t something that appealed to me.

• Too many positions with minimal to zero advantage

One of the problems I have with this course is trying to determine who the target audience is. As we have just seen, there is a number of complex variations I personally think aren’t suitable for <1800 (or even 1900) players.

On the other hand, there is a number of variations where the author strives for simplicity at all cost (just like in Keep It Simple: 1 e4) which might potentially repulse stronger players. Variations such as this line of the …d5 & …Bg4 setup:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "...d5 and ...Bg5 Sample Line"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "D02"]  [PlyCount "31"]   1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 c6 4. Bg2 Bg4 5. c4 e6 6. h3 Bh5 7. O-O Nbd7 8. cxd5  cxd5 9. Nc3 Be7 10. Ne5 Bg6 11. Nxg6 hxg6 12. e4 dxe4 13. Nxe4 Nd5 14. Qb3 Qb6  15. Qxb6 N7xb6 16. Nc5 {This is the move that I did not consider during the  game. White has a good, active game here with some advantage.} *   

Or the following line of the Grünfeld setups:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Grünfeld Sample Line"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "D02"]  [PlyCount "27"]   1. d4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Nh6 5. O-O Nf5 6. c3 O-O 7. Nbd2 Nd6 8. Re1  b6 9. e4 dxe4 10. Nxe4 Nxe4 11. Rxe4 Bb7 12. Re1 Nd7 13. Bg5 Nf6 14. Qe2 {My  opponent Etienne Bauduin played 14. Ne5 here, which was also giving White a  comfortable advantage. It's a tough call, but 14. Qe2 seems even stronger. It  keeps more pieces on the board and probably exerts pressure. We play ?ad1 next  and still may play Qe5 later to exploit the weak c6-square.} *   

Okay, my opening philosophy is not suited for such variations. They bugged me in KIS: 1 e4, but they were consistent with the overall approach. This time, they bug me even more, because they are in sharp contrast with previously examined complicated variations.

I understand some players are content with a minimal advantage, but in contrast to KIS: 1 e4, this course can’t guarantee the play will follow such a turn of events.

• Some positions where the author overestimates White’s chances

Even though I am pretty sure the author did check everything with the computer, I found some lines where he decided to ignore it/interpret it in an over-optimistic way. As an example, take a look at this position arising from the variation in the Tarrasch chapter:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Tarrasch Defence Sample Line"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "D30"]  [PlyCount "31"]   1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 c5 3. c4 e6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. g3 Nc6 6. Bg2 Nf6 7. O-O Be7 8.  dxc5 Bxc5 9. a3 Ne4 10. Nfd2 f5 11. Nxe4 dxe4 12. Qxd8+ Nxd8 13. Nc3 Be6 14. g4  g6 15. gxf5 gxf5 16. Bf4 {I think that White is slightly better here. We have  more active possibilities, for example on the queenside based on moves like  Nb5, Rc1 and b4. Another idea worth noting is playing Bh1 to continue with f3  next. That opens the long diagonal and gets us closer to attacking the f5-pawn,  which is more exposed than the e2-pawn. Black has many possible moves now, so  I'd like to stop at this point. It is an interesting position to explore  further, together with a human or silicone partner.} *   

Or this position arising from the variation in the Queen’s Indian chapter:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "Queen's Indian Sample Line"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "A50"]  [PlyCount "25"]   1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 b6 3. g3 Bb7 4. Bg2 g6 5. O-O Bg7 6. c4 O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Nxe4  Bxe4 9. Be3 d6 10. Qd2 Nd7 11. Bh6 Nf6 12. Bxg7 Kxg7 13. b3 *   

Or this positions arising from the variation in the …d5 & … Bf5 chapter:

   [Event "?"]  [Site "?"]  [Date "2019.07.13"]  [Round "?"]  [White "Keep It Simple: 1 d4"]  [Black "... d5 and ...Bf5 Sample Line"]  [Result "*"]  [ECO "D11"]  [PlyCount "35"]   1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 c6 4. Bg2 Bf5 5. c4 e6 6. Nc3 h6 7. Qb3 Qb6 8. c5  Qxb3 9. axb3 Na6 10. Ra4 Nd7 11. h4 Be7 12. Bf4 f6 13. b4 Bc2 14. Rxa6 bxa6 15.  h5 a5 16. b5 cxb5 17. Bh3 Kf7 18. Nxd5 {And again we have enough play for the  exchange.} *   

The author claims White is better in all three positions. Even though I haven’t run a detailed engine analysis, at first sight, Stockfish and yours truly both think White can’t claim any advantage. At the very least, he obtained a playable, complex position, where he is also risking a lot. Even though I might venture to go for such a position once in a while, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if it was the foundation of my opening repertoire.

• Volume

Finally, I know it might be weird I am mentioning volume since I praised the amount of the information in the course previously and that opening book containing a complete repertoire is expected to be thick.

But I spent somewhere between 20-25 hours just quickly going through the material in the first iteration. I know it is unrealistic to expect you can craft entire 1 d4 repertoire in just a couple of hours, but considering the amount of time required and all the cons mentioned, I really wondered whether it is the most effective way of doing so. ⁷

FINAL VERDICT

To conclude – we chess players have a saying that the „calculation of every long variation“ involves a certain hole. This is a bit how I felt as I was going through Keep It Simple: 1 d4.. ⁸ Every huge course is bound to have some variations the student will simply dislike and some variations where the student will dispute the evaluation.

As mentioned above – my main objection is that it is not clear to me who should get the course. Lower rated players might get lost in the forest of complicated variations. Higher rated players might find certain variations less ambitious and the process of memorization not worth the benefits. I personally had a feeling author himself couldn’t decide when to simplify it and when to complicate it, which resulted in the great disproportion between simple and complicated lines.

Bear in mind that I am a certain profile of the player whose general approach to the opening phase is different – I, for instance, preferred FM Kamil Plichta’s Go For The Throat: 1 d4 comprehensive repertoire much more, as it goes for the more direct, conclusive and sharp lines. But nevertheless, I think it would be more consistent if the author follower the recipe of Keep It Simple: 1 e4 and decided for absolutely simple variations (say King’s Indian Exchange, Grünfeld with Bd2, Queen’s Gambit Declined, etc.).

Don’t get me wrong, Keep It Simple: 1 d4 is not a BAD course. The author put an insane amount of hours into it. It contains a gigantic amount of valuable information and a number of good lines. It is not like you will not get anything out of it. Chapters on Catalan, Reverse Grünfeld or Anti Grünfeld are very good and I am glad I have seen this analysis – I might get around to using it someday.

Also, it is definitely a cheaper option than getting yourself a separate book for every particular opening. The course is certainly worth its money.

But I am just not sure whether it is realistic to expect to build an entire repertoire for such amount of money. I am not certain that getting an entire 1 d4 repertoire just to play a couple of lines is the most effective approach. ⁹ At the very least, it depends on your strength, ambitions, time and budget.

I’d urge to at least think a bit whether it is the most effective use of your time and your money for chess improvement purposes and chess opening theory study.

Chessentials Mark: 3.5/5

The post Keep It Simple: 1 d4 Chessable Course: An Honest Review appeared first on Chessentials.

In the digital era, new technological solutions and applications that shape the modern world appear on an almost daily basis.

Chess as a field is no exception. Over the last couple of years, several interesting start-ups, offering unique technical solutions and previously non-existing features to chess players, have appeared on the scene.  Some examples include Forward Chess, which allows us to read chess e-books interactively, or Decode Chess which allows its users to analyze chess games with engines who try to explain the reasoning behind their moves and evaluation.

In this blog post, I would like to write about one start-up in particular, which has been growing rapidly and which gathered a lot of attention. Start-up offering a revolutionary chess learning software – Chessable.

What is Chessable?

Chessable is a comprehensive and social learning website whose aim is to make learning chess as easy and efficient as possible. It was first born as a private opening memorization tool by its CEO David Kramaley, who slowly developed it in today’s form. In its early days, he approached the popular teacher, streamer, chess content creator and International Master John Bartholomew, who became the „face of Chessable“ and as they say – the rest is history. The website and its team continue to grow to this day. ¹

What makes Chessable different and unique? As far as I know, at the moment of writing, ² it is the only chess learning website/app that relies heavily on the scientific approach. Chessable utilizes two main concepts – spaced repetitions/scheduling and gamification. The implementation of these scientific methods will be examined in more depth in the remainder of the article, but in a nutshell – in Chessable you repeatedly click through moves (of an opening variation, of a tactical puzzle, of an endgame) in regularly increasing time intervals and get rewarded when you do it correctly.

What does the Chessable interface look like?

After you make an account in Chessable and login to the homepage (Chessable -> Home), the first thing you notice is a list of courses you are currently studying.

If you are new to Chessable, the list of your courses will be empty.

In order to start studying, you need to purchase one from their list of courses (or select one of the free courses available). You can do that by selecting Courses -> All Courses, which leads you to the following page:

Chessable offers various courses about all phases of the game. The majority of the courses is created by the users and chess content creators, but Chessable is also transcribing popular chess books (such as The Woodpecker Method or The 100 Endgames You Must Know or My Great Predecessors) into their interface.

Of course, initially, it might be difficult to select a course since the choice is so broad. Fortunately, it is possible to search through courses via the filter, so if you are interested in Sicilian Najdorf, you can simply write it there and – voila – a list of courses about Kasparov and Fischer’s favorite opening appears:

Also, if you are not sure if a course is suitable for your rating, Chessable is here to help as it ranks every single course on the basis of its difficulty into four categories:

• Beginner: 800-1200 ELO
• Casual: 1100-1500 ELO
• Intermediate: 1500-1900 ELO
• Advanced: 1700-2200+ ELO

Once you have decided on a course, you can click on its title and it will land you on the course homepage, where it is thoroughly described.

Please note that some courses also offer a video material where the author explains the variations provided in the course. The video is bought independently of the trainable variations for MoveTrainer and offers a very cool feature of video-sync (which will be described later in this article).

What does the Chessable Interface look like? How do I access it?

The basic Chessable Interface for studying and learning variations and courses is the so-called MoveTrainer. Courses are nothing else but chess databases in .pgn format imported and adapted for use within it.

MoveTrainer is basically a tool that allows you to go through variations in the form of a quiz. The concept is as follows: MoveTrainer shows you a move of a variation and asks you to repeat it.

If you don’t get it correctly, you are shown the correct move once again instead and the quiz restarts.

Once you manage to find the right move, you get points and move to the next one.

After you go through all the moves of the variation, MoveTrainer asks you to repeat them all from the beginning, with emphasis on moves you didn’t get correctly the first time.

MoveTrainer also makes it easy to analyze a position. Just click the little chessboard symbol below the text (on the far right) and a separate Analysis board opens in a new tab. You can toggle the engine or choose to use your brain.

How do you get from the course homepage to MoveTrainer? Well, first of all, you need to purchase the course. ³ Once  you do it, you are able to enter the course dashboard (Course->Browse) and are directed to the following page:

Every course is divided into several chapters, usually on the basis of the topic it covers. You can see that each chapter of the 1 d4: Keep it Simple course covers a different set-up Black can choose against the move 1 d4. An exact division by chapters (with the number of variations) can be found on the course homepage before you make a purchase.

Once you have selected a variation you want to study, you simply click on it and will be directed to the variation page.

MoveTrainer can be accessed through the Learn Next and Review buttons on the upper right hand of the screen, which will sequentially guide you through all variations in the course. Alternatively, you can also click on the Learn/Review button below an individual variation to study it specifically.

When you click the Learn button, you open the MoveTrainer and enter the studying process described above, where variations are shown to you first and then you have to get the moves correctly.

But Chessable also allows you an additional option of reviewing the course. It is basically playing through variations after you finished learning them. The difference is that this time, no variations are shown before the quiz – only when you fail a move. It allows you to test your knowledge and memorize the lines you have trouble memorizing more effectively.

What study options does Chessable have? Where do I set them?

One of the important Chessable features is that the learning and reviewing process in MoveTrainer is customizable. There are three places within Chessable where you can adjust the study settings.

First of all, once inside the course, on the right side of the screen, you can see the ‘Course Options’ bar (see two previous photos), where you can customize your learning process by setting the following options:

• Video – whether you want to have video enabled or disabled
• Quiz – by default, the learning process consists of Chessable showing you a line and you repeat it up to 3 times. Here you can decide to skip the learning process by changing the option from ‘After Learn’ to ‘Immediately’ (which essentially turns learning into reviewing)
• Study – in every chapter, there are variations which diverge on late moves. The ‘Study’ option allows you to set whether you want to repeat the whole line from move 1, or just from the key position from which the moves diverge.
• Review – ‘Review’ option allows you to choose whether you want to review the whole variation from start to end or if you want to get a randomized position from the chapter on every move.
• Reps – the number of times you repeat the line (both during learning and reviewing). The default setting is 3, but you can also set your own.
• Depth – an option for PRO users I have never used that apparently allows you to set how many moves you want to study.
• Soft fail – certain variations in Chessable, apart from ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ moves, also have ‘alternative’ moves – moves that the author of the course didn’t quote as the main line, but that is equally playable. During the study, the default setting is that you can don’t fail the quiz if you make an alternative move and can retry it instead. You can change it here so you fail if you don’t strictly make the move author envisioned.
• Schedule – allows you to choose the option for the schedule of your spaced repetitions.
• Time – Allows you to choose how many seconds you have to think during the quiz. Default is
  60 s.

Secondly, if you click on your username in the upper right corner of the screen and select Settings -> Study, you land on another page where you can, among other things, adjust the following settings:

• Number of moves you review if you select „randomized position“ option in Review
• Whether you want to mute the sound or not
• Your default number of repetitions
• Whether you want the moves/lines to go sequentially or randomly while reviewing
• Which type of annotation do you want to use
• etc.

Finally, inside the MoveTrainer, you can adjust the speed of the piece movement and duration of pauses between (believe me – this frustrated me for a while until I figured out I can increase it as much as possible – I found the default option way too slow). ⁴

Is there anything else I can do in Chessable?

Up to this point, I have described the extent of my personal use of Chessable. But there are many more tools and features Chessable offers its users you might find interesting. Here I will describe some that sparked my interest:

• Video-sync

Probably the coolest feature of them all; something I have never seen before. If you purchase a video, play it and toggle ‘Filter based on video’, variations the author is talking about at the exact moment are automatically filtered and presented below.

• Variation explorer

If you go to Tools/Explore-Add New Line, an opening book that contains moves from all Published Chessable Courses appears.

Here you can do the following:

• Make an overview of your entire course by selecting it from the drop-down menu
• Find a certain position in Chessable courses
• Open the Analysis board
• Add a variation to your own course

• Variation page

If you go to the list of variations and click on the title, or click on the small arrow inside a square next to the title in MoveTrainer, you open a separate ‘Variation’ page.

Here, all moves of a variation together with their annotations are shown. A great Chessable feature is implemented in the form of Comments & Notes. If there is something confusing about a certain position, you can make a comment, and the author of the course will be notified. The best thing is – all comments and notes are public and visible to everyone.

• Creating your own course

Finally, you can create your own course via Tools -> New Course. You add variations via Import PGN function or Variation explorer. You can use your courses for private study, but you can also try submitting them to Chessable team and – with luck and skill – have them published.

Of course, there are many more features I haven’t yet mentioned. Fortunately, Chessable has a very good Help and a very lively and responsive community and team. Figuring it is, therefore, not an impossible task.

Why do you recommend Chessable?

I first heard about Chessable way back in 2017. I made an account, but never used it and quickly forgot it ever existed.

My memory was refreshed in January 2019, when conducting an interview with CM Andrzej Krzywda. Andrzej told me he uses it on a regular basis, not only for the study of opening, but also for opening preparation.

Even so, I was still skeptical of its revolutionary learning method. Can it really be so effective? Isn’t repeating a variation three times in a row just dumb? Surely that can’t be better than going through a book or sitting in front of a Chessbase?

However, after I interviewed FM Kamil Plichta in February 2019, I purchased his course on the Trompowsky and gave it a shot. And I started liking it more and more as the days passed by. I started employing Trompowsky in blitz games with reasonable success and even played it in two tournaments games in my league (beating a lower rated opponent and losing to the higher rated one).

Fast forward a couple of months later, I have got myself 6 additional courses, started experimenting with a wider array of chess openings and – most importantly – started enjoying chess more than ever before.

The main reason I like Chessable so much is that, with the limited amount of hours per day an adult like me has available to study chess, it makes chess opening material much more accessible. By being able to study on your phone, it is much easier to distribute chess training in short-intervals. I usually click through the opening books three times a day for ~ 15 minutes. I find it the best way of studying openings and – needless to say – far more practical than carrying chess books around or spending time on Chessbase.

Secondly, the overall quality of the chess courses on Chessable is astounding. The authors really put a lot of thought of effort in course creation. Sure, some individual courses are better than the others and some variations within a course are more applicable than the others. But in general, the quality of the chess material does not lack compared to other chess products available out there.

Finally, there is something to the method of successive repetitions. I have noticed I remember a good amount of variations I go through. Probably the same effect (or even greater) could be achieved with long periods of time in front of a book and the engine. But in the given circumstances, I found out that clicking through Chessable is what works best for me.

Is there anything you don’t like about Chessable?

Yes, I really miss the existence of Chessable mobile app – it would make my learning on phone more pleasant (and efficient, since I ‘d be less prone to switching to Facebook tab every time I completed a variation ).

Also, I think the reviews of the courses in the comments below are a bit too unanimous in their positivity. I have never seen a review (of any course) that gave the mark below 4/5. I think that „everything is fantastic“ vibe is sometimes not completely objective.

Finally, as much as I think gamification is one of the better aspects of Chessable, I also think they have gone over the top in some regards. You can track your streaks, collect badges and rubies (red gems that allow you to purchase some additional features like extra free course slots), but unlike MoveTrainer scoring system I don’t find them particularly useful. Constant dopamine rushes reminds me a bit of how social media works and I can’t say I am the biggest fan.

But these ‘trifles’ are minor enough not to spoil an overall impression.

What is your motivation behind writing this post?

Now, I know many of you are thinking something along the „Isn’t this just a glorified commercial?“ and „How much are they paying you?“ lines. That is why I would like to take a moment to explain my motivation behind writing this post.

It is true that I recently got into contact with people who work for Chessable. We were discussing some blog writing possibilities. Then they asked me whether I would like to review the afore-mentioned 1 d4: Keep it Simple course.

Now, this wasn’t the first time somebody asked me to write about their company/product on this blog. But I never accepted it – I was always reluctant to write a typical advertising post. I am not fond of recommending something I don’t personally use.  Hopefully, screenshots in this post and my Chessable profile show that the old Latin saying „Res, non verba!“, is fully satisfied.

That is why this is the first time I accepted. I even decided writing an additional post, because I thought explaining the basic mechanics of Chessable made some sense.

I didn’t get any direct benefits in terms of money or affiliate links. ⁵ But I would also lie if I said I didn’t see this as an opportunity to put my name in there. You might also see me publishing a course in the future.

But I don’t think any exposure or potential course publishing is worth risking your integrity. I wouldn’t write this post if I didn’t honestly think Chessable had a great product.

I can’t recommend it hard enough.

If you are skeptical, I’d urge you to at least give it a shot.

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The post Is Chessable all it’s cracked up to be? An honest review appeared first on Chessentials.